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• JPMorgan on Tuesday unveiled a new stock trading application that would offer in some cases zero-commission stock trades.
• Vanguard Group also said on Tuesday it would offer a platform of free ETF trading, following Fidelity which announced earlier in August that it was rolling out a zero-fee index fund.
• Market experts expect the news could bring the cost of trading sharply lower, accelerating a trend that's been in the works since discount brokers came online decades ago. 

A big announcement by JPMorgan on Tuesday could precipitate the next chapter of a price-war that's long been underway on Wall Street. 

JPMorgan unveiled a new stock trading application that would offer in some cases zero-commission stock trades in an interview with CNBC. Vanguard Group also said on Tuesday it would offer a platform of free ETF trading, following Fidelity which announced earlier in August that it was rolling out a zero-fee index fund.

And now market experts expect the news could bring the cost of trading sharply lower, accelerating a trend that's been in the works since discount brokers came online decades ago. 

"It is another piece of evidence that we are going to zero," Devin Ryan, an analyst at JMP Securities, said in an interview with Business Insider. 

Ryan said the news would force the hand of other brokerage firms to act soon to preserve their own market share. 

"The question is how does the industry react," he added. "We are going to see them invest in pricing. They're going to act a little sooner than they might have." 

JPMorgan is following a similar model to Amazon Prime. Free two-day shipping to customers may act as a loss leader to Amazon, but the company is betting this perk will encourage shoppers to buy more on the site. In the same vein, JPMorgan is offering free trading services to Chase users with the hopes that it'll incentivize them to do other, higher margin business with the bank. 

Shares of online brokerages such as Charles Schwab and E-Trade dropped on Tuesday, showing the risk that JPMorgan's plan poses to the already cut-throat brokerage price war. 

These firms are already bringing down their costs to fend off upstart firms such as Robinhood, which pioneered zero-commission stock trading for its 4 million users. 

"Free is the new cheap," wrote Bernstein quant and macro specialist Ethan Brodie in a note to clients. 

A TDAmeritrade spokesperson told Business Insider it is "very well positioned to compete and win in a low-cost environment. However, the competitive environment will likely continue to shift, and we will remain nimble." 

A spokesman for Schwab did not specifically refer to price compression, saying in a statement that the firm would "continue to aggressively lead the way in improving how people invest and manage their wealth."

TDAmeritrade charges $6.95 per trade, whereas Schwab charges $4.95. 

Ryan said it's a matter of when these firms charge zero for trading, not if. Ultimately, that will translate into a world in which brokerage firms and startups alike will have to adjust their business models to offer other high touch services to clients from which they can profit. Ryan specifically said they might venture into financial advice.

"The world is evolving and finance firms will have to offer more holistic services," he said. 

Mike Sha, the CEO of digital wealth management firm SigFig, said that the end of the broker price-wars may end with only a few casualties. Sha's thesis is that there are enough under-invested Americans for startups and existing brokers to survive. 

"I actually think what is going to happen in this industry is a rising tides lifts more ships situation," he said. 

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The vechain price (VET/VEN) rose nearly 10 percent on Tuesday, even as the wider cryptocurrency market struggled just to tread water amidst declining trading volume. VeChain Price Doubles in Just One Week The cryptocurrency, the native token of the eponymous IoT-focused VeChain platform, has been one of the market’s top performers in August, as CCN

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• Is bitcoin "digital gold?"
• Its proponents argue that the digital currency could replace gold one day as a major store of value for investors.
• But there are multiple criteria that gold fulfills but bitcoin falls flat on — meaning it won't be replacing the precious metal any time soon.
• Bitcoin is pretty illiquid, has little functional purpose, and there's no guarantee it'll still be used even a few years from now.

Bitcoin is the "digital gold" — at least, that's what its fervent advocates claim.

They argue that the buzzy digital currency is the 21st century's answer to precious metals, and may one day replace gold as a major store of value for investors.

But is bitcoin likely to actually replace real gold in mainstream investors' eyes any time soon? According to Morningstar Equity Research analyst Kristoffer Inton, the answer is a resounding no.

In a recent research note for investors, the analyst laid out five criteria that gold, as a "safe-haven investment," fulfills — and that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies would also need to succeed at in order to be considered as an investment on a par with (or superior to) the shiny precious metal.

Notably, these criteria don't include volatility — something investors want to avoid at all costs for safe-haven investments. Bitcoin is, infamously, prone to extreme bouts of volatility. In the space of under a year, its price has skyrocketed from around $4,000 to almost $20,000, before falling back to around $6,500 today.

So what are they? The five areas are liquidity, functional purpose, scarcity of supply, future demand certainty, and permanence.

Gold successfully ticks the box on every one of these criteria, while bitcoin only manages two (at a push), Inton argues.

First up, liquidity. An investment vehicle needs to be traded regularly, and bitcoin is remarkably illiquid, as crypto investors hoard (or "hodl") their digital coins. "Current levels of trading see daily volume of roughly 0.5% of all existing bitcoins," Inton wrote. "Gold averages more than 5 times as much volume, with nearly 3% of all existing gold being regularly traded."

Next: As well as being a universally recognised store of value, gold actually has a functional purpose — from its utilization in computer circuit boards to ornamental jewellery and teeth replacements. Bitcoin's only purpose is as a currency and store of value — and right now, it's only rarely accepted for actual purchases (rather than speculative trades).

Bitcoin does, however, have scarcity of supply, a necessary component for retaining value. There will only ever be a maximum of 21 million bitcoins in existence, a rule written into its code from day one.

Is there future demand certainty for bitcoin? That's a very big unknown. The digital currency has been around for less than a decade, in a period of significant technological and political upheaval; even if cryptocurrencies catch on in the mainstream, there's no guarantee bitcoin will be one of the ultimate winners. In contrast, gold has been universally accepted as valuable for more than 5,000 years of human history — it's a pretty safe bet for investors that it won't have totally devalued a year from now.

Lastly, there's permanence — the question of whether the given investment resource itself degrades over time. Gold is a precious metal that doesn't tarnish; bitcoin, too, won't rot or deteriorate. (Though if people stop widely using bitcoin, the network will degrade in quality and could eventually disappear altogether; gold would continue to exist even if it ceased to be used as an investment vehicle tomorrow.)

SEE ALSO: Y Combinator, a startup program that's harder to get into than Harvard, accepts all 15,000 applicants into Startup School after a major screwup

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• United Airlines announced a plan to begin charging an extra fee for passengers to reserve economy seats near the front of the plane.
• A reserve fee of this type is already practiced by others in the industry, notably American Airlines and Delta Air Lines.
• Separating the costs of various travel services into their own fee group is an industry practice known as "unbundling."
• Unbundling has been around since the 2000s, and has been embraced by the entire airline industry. 

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United Airlines announced this week a plan to begin charging extra for passengers to reserve economy seats near the front of the plane, a reserve fee already practiced by others in the industry, notably American Airlines and Delta Air Lines. 

According to USA Today, United announced the new policy which will allow passengers the option to pay more for basic seats that offer the convenience of being closer to the front of the plane. These seats, which will be just behind their Economy Plus row, will be available for purchase by the public, but certain United Corporate Preferred clients can reserve them for free and certain elite-level frequent fliers can reserve them without a fee. 

These are not seats with any extra leg-room or perks like those economy seats in United's Economy Plus rows, Delta's Comfort+ rows, or American's Main Cabin Extra. They are simply closer to the front of the plane to offer passengers the convenience of boarding and exiting without having to wait in a longer line. 

In a statement to Business Insider, United Airlines spokesperson Maddie King said, "If these seats are not filled, they will be opened for all customers to select at check-in, free of charge. These preferred seats will be available for purchase for all other customers at time of booking."

The USA Today reported United plans to incorporate the practice before the end of the year, but did not give an exact start date or what the cost for reserving a select economy seat would be. 

This is not the first instance of airlines charging fees for optional passenger conveniences. In fact, this is actually standard industry practice and is known by a name: unbundling. 

Unbundling first began in the late 2000s when airlines recognized the necessity of gaining extra revenue to counteract the higher price of crude oil, which had hit $132 a barrel in the summer of 2008. Unbundling is the practice of separating various costs of services like baggage check, security check, seat assignments, meals, wi-fi use, and early boarding into their own price points. In short, charging little fees for different elements of travel. 

According to Bob Mann, President of RW Mann & Company, an airline analysis firm with over 40 years of experience in the industry, American Airlines was the first to charge $20 for a baggage check.

"With that out of the box pretty much everybody else did it," Mann said. "It was the first big gasp of how to get unbundling started." 

Things took off. By 2011, unbundling was embraced by the entire airline industry. What's more, Mann said these ancillary fees are not subject to the 7.5% Federal Excise Tax, which applies only to domestic airline tickets sold in the U.S. This loophole gives the industry even more reason to charge these fees.

"It gives them a huge incentive to do it," Mann said, adding that this is not regulated by the Department of Transportation. "You can give away the airfare and then charge everybody for every other element."

SEE ALSO: Why you have to pay a fortune to get a decent seat on a plane

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Cryptocurrency industry non-profit research and advocacy organization Coin Center is calling for Congress to enact legislation that will provide bitcoin investors with safe harbor on federal taxes incurred as the result of software forks. Writing in a post published on the Washington, D.C.-based organization’s blog, executive director Jerry Brito argued that cryptocurrency investors who have

The post Coin Center Calls for Congress to Give U.S. Taxpayers Safe Harbor on Bitcoin Hard Forks appeared first on CCN

• A Gulfstream G-IV private jet carrying rapper Post Malone blew two tires while taking off from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey on Tuesday.
• The jet made a successful emergency landing at Stewart International Airport near Newburgh, New York shortly before 4:00 pm on Tuesday.
• The Gulfstream jet was en route to Luton Airport in London, England at the at the time of the incident.
• The jet spent several hours circling above the Northeastern US as it tried to burn off fuel.

A Gulfstream G-IV private jet carry rapper Post Malone blew two tires while taking off from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey Tuesday morning.

The jet landed safely at Stewart International Airport near Newburgh, New York shortly before 4:00 pm.

"A Gulfstream Aerospace G-IV aircraft landed safely at Stewart International Airport in New Windsor, NY, about 3:50 p.m. today," The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement. "The aircraft was towed to the ramp. The FAA will investigate."

In a tweet, the Post Malone confirmed he landed and thanked his fans for their prayers.

"I landed guys. Thank you for your prayers. Can't believe how many people wished death on me on this website. F*** you. But not today," the rapper said on Twitter.

"Oh my God, I hate flying in general," he told TMZ in a post-landing video chat. "I don't know what to say. I'm shook."

The award-winning rapper went on to thank the jet's pilots and declared his desire for alcoholic beverages. 

The jet, which is believed to have had 16 passengers on board, was en route to Luton Airport in London, England, when the incident took place shortly before 11 a.m. 

According to flight-tracking website Flightradar24, the Gulfstream spent a couple of hours circling above Northern New Jersey before shifting north to Connecticut. The FAA initially told ABC News that the jet will be diverted to Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport in Massachusetts.

However, the Gulfstream was later rerouted to Stewart International Airpor, the FAA confirmed to Business Insider. 

According to communication between the Gulfstream's pilot and control tower at Stewart, both tires on the jet's left main landing gear appear to be deflated. 

The Gulfstream jet spent roughly five hours flying circular patterns over New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut to burn off its heavy fuel load in an attempt to reduce the load on the plane's already damaged land gear.

The aircraft involved in the incident has been identified as N101CV, a Gulfstream G-IV built in 1993. 

Stewart International Airport boasts one of the longest runways in the Northeastern US at 11,817 feet and is used as a diversion location for airliners as large as the Airbus A380 superjumbo. 

Post Malone's tour schedule indicates he is scheduled to perform in Reading, England on Friday. The rapper attended the MTV Video Music Awards in New York on Monday where his song "Rockstar" won Song of the Year. 

Here's a live look at Stewart International Airport where the jet made its emergency landing.

SEE ALSO: Airlines are using these 5 planes to replace the Boeing 747 jumbo jet

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• First-party Nintendo titles give the Japanese video-game maker a key advantage over its global competitors such as PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
• Switch demand is going to be heavily skewed towards the October to December holiday season.
• Morgan Stanley argued that Switch sales will lift Nintendo's share price from a longer cycle.
• Watch Nintendo trade in real-time here.

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

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak discussed his involvement in a new crypto startup company and his interest in blockchain in general in a NullTx interview earlier this week. The tech prodigy became interested in Bitcoin after learning about the potential of decentralized ledgers and becoming intrigued by the mystery of who invented it, also impressed with

The post Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Flip-Flops on Blockchain, Joins Crypto Startup appeared first on CCN

BTC/USD shorts on Bitfinex are nearing record highs, leaving many to wonder if a short squeeze will occur like it did when the prior mark was set.

Bitcoin price on Tuesday continued to stay capped by a stiff resistance near $6,500. The BTC/USD pair started off today with a near-term bullish correction from intraday support near 6232-fiat. The upside looked strong during the Asian trading session and was able to go above 6500-fiat by the afternoon. However, the presence of a firm … Continued

The post Bitcoin Price Intraday Analysis: BTCUSD Breaks Ascending Triangle appeared first on CCN

• The ongoing bull market in stocks will tie for the longest ever on Wednesday. 
• Stocks fell to the lowest level of the recession nine years ago on March 6, 2009. 
• Days earlier, Obama said the market was getting so cheap that "buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you've got a long-term perspective on it."
• Stocks have nearly quadrupled since then. 

Former President Barack Obama nailed it. 

Nine years ago, on Friday, March 6, 2009, the S&P 500 index dropped to an intraday low of 666.79. This level also ended up being the bottom of the stock market's decline in the midst of the Great Recession. 

Three days earlier, Obama, who entered office in 2009 — the year after stocks lost nearly 40% — answered a reporter's question about the stock market. But he could not have known that it would end up being one of the most perfectly timed market calls ever. 

On March 3, Obama told reporters: "What you're now seeing is profit-and-earnings ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you've got a long-term perspective on it."

After the market closes on Wednesday, the current bull market will tie for the longest in history. Since the March 2009 low, the S&P 500 has nearly quadrupled, with a gain of about 324%.

Obama also offered a valuable lesson in investing, which would come handy when the next recession or bear market hits.

"What I'm looking at is not the day-to-day gyrations of the stock market, but the long-term ability for the United States and the entire world economy to regain its footing," Obama said. "And the stock market is sort of like a tracking poll in politics. It bobs up and down day-to-day, and if you spend all your time worrying about that, then you're probably going to get the long-term strategy wrong." 

Watch Obama's full response below:

See also: 

• Bank of America names 2 sectors investors should buy in to as the bull market makes history

• Investors have turned complacent and are in danger of being sideswiped by a 'likely correction' that's approaching, Morgan Stanley says
• MOODY'S WARNS: Mutual funds are bleeding cash at an unprecedented rate, and they're increasingly vulnerable to the next market meltdown

Join the conversation about this story »

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

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.

Stocks hit all-time highs for the first time since January

US stocks on Tuesday rose to record highs for the first time since January 26.

Led by tech and utilities companies, the benchmark S&P 500 index surpassed its previous intra-day record of 2,872.87. It traded up 0.6% to 2,872.93 at 1:10 p.m. ET.

The rally to new highs almost coincided with an even bigger milestone for stocks: After the market closes on Wednesday, this bull market will officially become the longest in history, as measured by its ascent from the low it set during the recession in 2009.

Stocks rebounded after a correction in February, a 10% drop from its previous high that was only the fourth of this bull market. The plunge took the Dow Jones industrial average down by more than 1,000 points, the most ever, and wiped out investment products that had profited from the low volatility that prevailed in markets for most of last year.

JPMorgan’s assault on Silicon Valley’s turf continues with launch of cheap stock trading app

JPMorgan is taking the plunge into the market for low-cost stock trading, another sign the investing giant is going after the business of younger, sexier startup firms like Robinhood.

The New York-based firm is launching its new investing app next week, according to a CNBC report. The new app would offer discounted stock trading, a portfolio-building feature, and access to the investment bank's research

Customers who download JPMorgan's banking app can get 100 free trades in the first year.

Across the brokerage industry, firms have been under pressure to lower cost amid rising competition. Notably, California brokerage Robinhood pioneered free stock trading, forcing establishment firms like Fidelity and TDAmeritrade to slash their pricing. Most recently, Fidelity announced no-fee index funds.

Slack just raised a whopping $427 million to become a $7.1 billion company

Slack, the work chat app that's become a poster child for Silicon Valley startup success, is on something of a hot streak.

First, Slack bought the intellectual property to Atlassian's HipChat, which had been one of its chief rivals. Then, no less than Microsoft recognized Slack as a major rival to the Microsoft Office suite in an official regulatory filing.

Now, Slack can add one more to its win column, as it takes in a whopping $427 million in an investment round led by Dragoneer Investment Group and General Atlantic, with participation from T. Rowe Price, Wellington Management, and others, including its existing roster of investors.

Another Wall Street bank has dropped coverage of Tesla

Morgan Stanley has dropped research overage of Tesla in what could be another sign of Elon Musk's electric-car company tapping banks for financial services in its bid to go private.

Goldman Sachs previously dropped coverage last week and said it was "acting as a financial advisor in connection with a matter that is fundamental to the reasonable analysis of the rating and price target for the stock."

In markets news

• Bank of America names 2 sectors investors should buy in to as the bull market makes history
• A $5 trillion market is at a tipping point that could redefine how investors make money trading stocks

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• Eric Trump, the younger of President Donald Trump's adult sons, said stocks were a "buy" on February 8, the day the market tumbled into a correction.
• His call coincided with the lowest S&P 500 close of the year. The index has since rallied more than 11% to hit a record high.
• Eric Trump's call still pales in comparison to the one made by former President Barack Obama. 

Eric Trump nailed his stock-market call.

On February 8, the stock market had just tumbled into a correction — a 10% drop from its recent highs — amid fears the Federal Reserve would have to hike interest rates more aggressively than it had been telling investors. That's when Trump, the younger of President Donald Trump's two adult sons, bravely declared that stocks were a good buy.

"The market's going to continue to be incredibly, incredibly strong," Eric Trump told Fox Business. "I think actually right now is probably a great period to buy."

It just so happens that Trump made the call to buy stocks less than two hours after the S&P 500 put in its lowest close of the year. Since then, the S&P 500 has rallied more than 11% to break the record high of 2,872.87 set on January 26.

And while Trump's call was a good one, it pales in comparison to the one made by his father's predecessor, former President Barack Obama.

On March 3, 2009, during the darkest days of the financial crisis, Obama made what could be the greatest stock-market call in history, telling reporters, "What you're now seeing is profit-and-earnings ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you've got a long-term perspective on it."

Three days later, the S&P 500 put in what may be a generational low of 666.79. The index has since rallied an astounding 331% and is in the midst of what could on Wednesday become the longest bull market in history, as measured by its rise from the trough hit in March 2009.

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• The S&P 500 rose to a new high on Tuesday for the first time since January 26. 
• On Wednesday, this bull market will become the longest ever.
• Strong earnings growth continues to power the stock market in the face of trade disputes, higher interest rates, and other things that have caused volatility this year. 

US stocks on Tuesday rose to record highs for the first time since January 26.

Led by tech and utilities companies, the benchmark S&P 500 index surpassed its previous intra-day record of 2,872.87. It traded up 0.6% to 2,872.93 at 1:10 p.m. ET. 

The rally to new highs almost coincided with an even bigger milestone for stocks: After the market closes on Wednesday, this bull market will officially become the longest in history, as measured by its ascent from the low it set during the recession in 2009. 

Stocks rebounded after a correction in February, a 10% drop from its previous high that was only the fourth of this bull market. The plunge took the Dow Jones industrial average down by more than 1,000 points, the most ever, and wiped out investment products that had profited from the low volatility that prevailed in markets for most of last year. 

US stocks have been supported this year by strong earnings growth, even in the face of trade disputes, turmoil in emerging markets, higher interest rates, and other factors that created volatility at various times during the year.

S&P 500 earnings grew 23% in the first quarter, the strongest pace in seven years. Nearly all S&P 500 companies have reported second-quarter earnings. And according to FactSet, the current trend puts more companies than ever on pace to report higher profits than analysts expected. 

"This bull market has been breathtaking, with stocks having risen over 300% since the start," said Kristina Hooper, the chief global market strategist at Invesco.

"I agree that valuations in general have become stretched; however, corporate earnings have been strong, and I believe US stocks are likely to continue to outperform in the shorter term given the strength of the US economy and the perceived safety of US stocks in the midst of trade wars."

See also:

• Investors have turned complacent and are in danger of being sideswiped by a 'likely correction' that's approaching, Morgan Stanley says
• MOODY'S WARNS: Mutual funds are bleeding cash at an unprecedented rate, and they're increasingly vulnerable to the next market meltdown
• GOLDMAN SACHS: Big-money investors are dominating the market with the help of 10 stocks — here's the list and how they can continue crushing it

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This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

Global online investment platform eToro, which notably offers cryptocurrency trading, has inked partnerships with seven major Premier League football clubs – all paid for in bitcoin. Major clubs playing in the world’s most-televised football league – watched by billions – could soon be using bitcoin to buy players from the global transfer market after opening

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This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

• Morgan Stanley dropped coverage of Tesla on Tuesday, becoming the second bank to restrict the stock.
• Shares surged as much as 5% following the news.
• Also on Tuesday, new documents show the grueling ways Tesla hit its production goals in June.
• Follow Tesla's stock price in real-time here. 

Shares of Tesla spiked as much as 5% Tuesday morning after Morgan Stanley became the second Wall Street bank to restrict its coverage of the stock and remove its price target. It could be a sign that Elon Musk is making progress in his bid to take the electric-car maker private. 

Goldman Sachs dropped coverage last week, as is typical when a bank's investment banking division is hired by a company its equity research department covers. The two departments are legally divided by a so-called Chinese wall that prevents the two divisions from conflicts-of-interest.

Also on Tuesday, new documents reported on by Business Insider's Linette Lopez showed the grueling way Tesla reached its goal of producing 5,000 Model 3 sedans per week. During the week of June 23rd, Tesla reworked a little over 4,300 Model 3 vehicles, according to internal documents. Each car took an average of 37 minutes to repair.

And finally, In a video factory tour with YouTube star Marques Brownlee published early Tuesday, CEO Elon Musk said Tesla may be able to produce an electric car for $25,000, but that it would take three years to get there.

"I think in order for us to get up to...a 25,000 car, that's something we can do," he said. "If we work really hard, I think maybe we can do that in three years."

He added that design and technology improvements are the keys to affordability, but that scale of production plays an important role as well. 

Tesla's stock price has whipsawed in the two weeks since Musk first tweeted his plan to take Tesla private at $420 a share. After initially skyrocketing to $389 —near record highs — shares briefly fell back below $300 on Monday following a slew of securities fraud lawsuits and a reported subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Shares are currently trading 32% below Musk's target of $420 per share. 

Read more about Tesla's bid to go-private:

• JPMorgan walks back its enthusiasm for Tesla's go-private bid, says 'funding appears to not have been secured'
• The SEC reportedly sent subpoenas to Tesla concerning Elon Musk's tweets about taking Tesla private
• IT'S OFFICIAL: Goldman Sachs is advising Elon Musk on his plans to take Tesla private
• Members of Tesla's board of directors are said to be lawyering up as crisis around Elon Musk deepens
• Pressure mounts on Tesla as it gets hit with a third securities fraud lawsuit in wake of Elon Musk's 'funding secured' tweet

Now read: 

• The legendary investor who predicted the past 2 bubbles breaks down how the 9-year bull market will end
• GOLDMAN SACHS: The market is about to be redefined by one huge shift — and buying these 14 stocks could help you make a killing
• It looks like 'Y2K all over again' for stocks as evidence of an imminent crash continues to pile up

SEE ALSO: Tesla's electronics are miles ahead of the competition — but Wall Street analysts who tore down a whole car worry they could be 'too centralized'

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Bitcoin Cash development team Bitcoin ABC isn’t backing down from its plan to release a contentious software upgrade in November, despite vows from other development teams and at least one major mining pool to continue using software that is incompatible with the new ABC client. On Monday, Bitcoin ABC released version 0.18.0 of its full

The post Bitcoin ABC Calls nChain’s Bluff, Vows to Proceed with Contentious Hard Fork Upgrade appeared first on CCN

• Morgan Stanley has joined Goldman Sachs in restricting its research coverage of Tesla.
• Tesla CEO Elon Musk is attempting to take the electric-car maker private and has begun tapping banks for services.
• Follow Tesla's stock price in real time here.

Morgan Stanley has dropped its research overage of Tesla in what could be another sign that Elon Musk's electric-car company is tapping banks for financial services in its bid to go private.

Goldman Sachs dropped coverage last week and said it was "acting as a financial advisor in connection with a matter that is fundamental to the reasonable analysis of the rating and price target for the stock."

Morgan Stanley declined to comment. Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The bank's autos analyst, Adam Jonas, is known for producing some of Wall Street's more entertaining research reports on everything from a potential SpaceX-Tesla merger to a breakup of General Motors. Until recently he was a major Tesla bull; his price target had been as high as $379 before he cut it to below $300 in recent weeks. Bloomberg data showed Tuesday that Morgan Stanley had restricted its coverage.

It is typical for a bank to suspend coverage when its investment-banking unit does business with a company under the bank's sell-side department's research coverage. The two departments of any given bank are legally required to maintain independence through what is known as a Chinese wall.

Musk has come under fire from other equity analysts over a tweet in which he suggested, seemingly incorrectly, that there was "funding secured" for a deal to take Tesla private. JPMorgan on Monday cut its price target for Tesla shares to $195 from $308, saying "funding appears to not have been secured."

Tesla's stock price has whipsawed in the two weeks since Musk sent out that tweet, in which he also suggested the company would go private at $420 a share. After initially skyrocketing to $389 —near record highs — shares briefly fell back below $300 on Monday following a slew of securities-fraud lawsuits and a reported subpoena from the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Shares were up about 1.7%, to $312, on Tuesday morning.

Read more about Tesla's bid to go-private:

• JPMorgan walks back its enthusiasm for Tesla's go-private bid, says 'funding appears to not have been secured'
• The SEC reportedly sent subpoenas to Tesla concerning Elon Musk's tweets about taking Tesla private
• IT'S OFFICIAL: Goldman Sachs is advising Elon Musk on his plans to take Tesla private
• Members of Tesla's board of directors are said to be lawyering up as crisis around Elon Musk deepens
• Pressure mounts on Tesla as it gets hit with a third securities fraud lawsuit in wake of Elon Musk's 'funding secured' tweet

Now read:

• The legendary investor who predicted the past 2 bubbles breaks down how the 9-year bull market will end
• GOLDMAN SACHS: The market is about to be redefined by one huge shift — and buying these 14 stocks could help you make a killing
• It looks like 'Y2K all over again' for stocks as evidence of an imminent crash continues to pile up

SEE ALSO: Tesla's electronics are miles ahead of the competition — but Wall Street analysts who tore down a whole car worry they could be 'too centralized'

Join the conversation about this story »

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• Of the 5,000 Model 3s that contributed to Tesla's end-of-June manufacturing target, about 4,300 required rework, according to internal documents viewed by Business Insider.
• Within the auto industry, cars that make it through a manufacturing process without requiring rework are part of a factory or line's "first pass yield," or FPY.
• That means the Tesla factory had a first pass yield for Model 3 vehicles of as low as 14% during the last week of June.
• An industry expert told Business Insider that good auto plants have a first pass yield of about 80%.
• A Tesla representative said the number of labor hours required per Model 3 had decreased by almost 30% since last quarter. 

Internal documents show that Tesla had to rework more than 4,300 of the 5,000 Model 3 vehicles it built during the last week of June, when it hit its critical production target.

Within the auto industry, cars that make it through a manufacturing process without requiring rework are part of a factory or line's "first pass yield," or FPY.

During the week of June 23, Tesla reworked a little over 4,300 Model 3 vehicles, according to internal documents. Each car took an average of 37 minutes to repair.

That means that Tesla had a first pass yield of about 14% for Model 3 production the first week of June, or that 14% of the vehicles made didn't need rework.

"A competitive plant will pass 80%-plus vehicles that do not require repair. I would say the average plant is about a 65-80% range," said Ron Harbour, a consultant at Oliver Wyman who founded and writes "The Harbour Report," a worldwide guide to manufacturing.

What's more, Harbour said, the amount of rework required for each car adversely affects a plant's overall labor productivity, which is determined by dividing the total hours of human labor worked by the number of vehicles produced in the plant.

"It's a direct impact on their labor productivity if they have to add additional labor hours for repair," he explained.

A representative for Tesla told Business Insider that while its FPY is confidential, it is important to understand that rework can also include minor issues and that most cars do not have significant issues when they reach the end of the production line.

"Our goal is to produce a perfect car for every customer," the representative said. "In order to ensure the highest quality, we review every vehicle for even the smallest refinement before it leaves the factory. Dedicated inspection teams track every car throughout every shop in the assembly line, and every vehicle is then subjected to an additional quality-control process towards the end of the line. And all of this happens before a vehicle leaves the factory and is delivered to a customer."

The representative also said the number of labor hours per Model 3 produced had decreased by almost 30% since last quarter.

(If you are a Tesla employee or customer who has a story to share about a car or experience with the company, give me a shout at [email protected].)

Tesla's production process

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said during the company's second-quarter earnings call on August 1 that it produced 5,000 Model 3 cars multiple times in July. When asked by Business Insider whether Tesla has continued the rate of production, the company declined to comment.

The most common reason Model 3 cars require rework is a "failed manual task," followed by cosmetic issues. Tesla would not comment on what this entails, but a factory worker who asked not to be named said that a manual task is anything on the production line that is installed by a human.

During Tesla's Q2 earnings call, Musk said that major productivity gains could be made by improving production processes, but he did not elaborate on what could be improved or by how much.

Musk described Tesla's production process as "a lot of hurry up and wait" on the production line. He said production was sometimes stalled because parts were incorrect, for example. He also said the plant was experiencing "super high labor costs per car."

Harbour explained that for the past 25 years, legacy automakers have focused on mitigating issues like this by getting the process of manufacturing right from the outset of production. And even after the process has been streamlined, top plants have figured out how to handle defects and repairs within a production line so they are not passed along to the next step or to the end of the line.

"In the '60s and '70s, it was always assumed you would have to repair some vehicles," Harbour said. "In the same way that Musk has challenged how you propel a car, Toyota's production system challenged the notion that you would always have to fix something. They said, 'Our goal is zero defects' ... and they've been very successful."

Kate Taylor contributed to this report.

SEE ALSO: A former Tesla engineer says the company silenced her entire team after they brought up safety and quality issues

READ MORE: Elon Musk ordered Tesla engineers to stop doing a critical brake test on Model 3s

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Bitmain’s latest funding round is quickly becoming a lot less star-studded. Hong Kong-based financial publication AAStocks reports that both Tencent and Softbank have issued public statements denying their participation in the bitcoin mining giant’s latest funding round, which multiple outlets had said was expected to raise $1 billion. Chinese publication QQ had earlier reported that

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• Mahathir Mohamad has cancelled two major Chinese-funded projects to avoid his country going into further debt.
• The projects were a $20 billion rail link and two gas pipelines worth $2.3 billion.
• All three were part of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a massive project which aims to link more than 70 countries through trade.
• Several of China's partners are having trouble repaying their loans.

Malaysia's prime minister has cancelled two multibillion-dollar Chinese-funded projects to avoid his country going into debt — delivering a blow to China's plan to reshape global trade.

Mahathir Mohamad told reporters on Tuesday that he would axe two major infrastructure projects because "we don't need" them, and that the debt accumulated from them could bankrupt Malaysia.

The projects were a $20 billion rail link connecting Malaysia's east coast and two gas pipelines worth $2.3 billion.

Mahathir said, according to the Associated Press: "It's all about pouring in too much money which we cannot afford, we cannot repay and also because we don't need these projects for Malaysia at this moment."

"With that debt, if we are not careful we can become bankrupt," he added.

The projects had been suspended and were pending renegotiation until Mahathir cancelled them. Some of the money on the projects has already been paid, and could be difficult to recoup, the Associated Press reported last week.

Mahathir added that Malaysia's current focus was on reducing national debt, and that the projects could be restarted in the future.

The ventures had been part of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a massive project launched in 2013 to link China to more than 70 countries across Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania via railroads, shipping lanes, and other infrastructure projects.

China has already invested between $1 trillion and $8 trillion — the exact amount is not clear — in those projects, the Center for Strategic and International Studies said.

Many BRI projects involve China giving massive loans to economies with bad credit, and several countries are already finding it difficult to pay the money back. Many projects have also been crippled by performance delays.

Mahathir blamed Malaysia's national debt on his predecessor Najib Razak, who developed close ties to China while in office. Najib is currently being investigated over charges that he looted billions of dollars from the state investment fund.

But Malaysia's cancellations came with the blessing of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, Mahathir said. He met the two men in Beijing earlier this week.

Mahathir said, according to Malaysia's New Straits Times newspaper: "I have explained to them and they understood the situation and accepted them. Initially, there were some misunderstandings but now they understood why we do it. I don’t think China wants us to be bankrupt."

Mahathir has taken a strong stance against China after taking office in May.

At a joint press conference with Premier Li on Monday, Mahathir said in pointed remarks, according to the Financial Times: "We should always remember that the level of development of countries are not all the same.

"We do not want a situation where there is a new version of colonialism happening because poor countries are unable to compete with rich countries, therefore we need fair trade."

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• For years, a public battle has been fought over the rise of indexing. Some say it helps efficiency and makes it easier to play the market, while others think it creates distortions.
• A new study from Vincent Deluard of INTL FCStone challenges the traditional idea that heavily indexed stocks are best suited to outperform the market.
• He says indexing has reached a "tipping point," and lays out arguments for why that could change stock trading as we currently know it.

For years now, a debate has raged in the investment world over the rise of indexing.

Its defenders will tell you it's helped the efficiency and diversity of the stock market, since traders have been afforded endless opportunities to buy large swaths of stocks in one fell swoop.

Its opponents have ardently stressed that indexing actually makes the market less efficient. The argument there is that single stocks contained in indexes stop trading on individual fundamentals, and are instead dragged along with the herd in price-insensitive fashion.

While this is an acceptable outcome when the market is climbing, skeptics argue that it can worsen losses during times of weakness — something many traders aren't properly braced for when they make a simple index investment.

Broadly speaking, the biggest lightning rod when it comes to indexing is the ever-growing universe of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which are the most popular and commonly used vessels for index investing. Having now swelled to more than $5 trillion in global value, the ETF complex is a behemoth that's frequently blamed for market distortions.

INTL FCStone macro strategist Vincent Deluard fits firmly into the skeptics' camp. He says it's undeniable that indexing — and, by extension, ETF use — has negatively impacted market efficiency.

But he's not exactly complaining. In his mind, understanding how exactly indexing warps markets can be valuable in formulating a strategy.

The only thing is, this strategy is about to get a huge overhaul, because indexing is at what he calls a "tipping point" — one that could alter the way people make money investing in stocks.

At the core of this assessment is the idea that as a stock gets increasingly popular with index providers, it gets more expensive. It's something that hasn't mattered much up to this point, as investors have had no problem continuing piling into these same inflated positions.

But based on recent data, the tide is starting to turn, says Deluard. He points out that these "index darlings" are getting to a point where they're too overvalued, and will start generating "disappointing" forward returns. When that happens, the unloved companies mostly shunned by indexes will pick up the slack.

And that's exactly what's happened. As you can see in the chart below, US stocks featured in less than 75 indexes have returned 65% over the past year — and returns have largely declined as the threshold for index exposure have increased.

This is a far cry from the prior five years, which saw the exact opposite dynamic unfold, with stocks more heavily represented in indexes outperforming.

So what can you do with this information? Deluard recommends seeking out the "index ugly ducklings" that have been on such a tear lately.

It's a unique variation of the so-called value trade, where investors look to scoop up discounted shares of companies that are cheap relative to the market. Except in this case, he's suggesting traders seek out equities that are underrepresented in indexes and the ETFs designed to track them.

"US equities have reached the 'passive tipping point,'" Deluard wrote in a recent client note. "Being popular with index providers no longer yields excess returns. On the other hand, the stocks that are under-owned by the index crowd may be priced to deliver a higher risk premium over the long-term."

SEE ALSO: The legendary investor who predicted the past 2 bubbles breaks down how the 9-year bull market will end

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• JPMorgan is taking the plunge into the world of low-cost stock trading, according to a CNBC report. 
• JPMorgan has been rolling-out a number of services to target younger investors. That puts it in direct competition with startup firms like Robinhood. 

JPMorgan is taking the plunge into the market for low-cost stock trading, another sign the investing giant is going after the business of younger, sexier startup firms like Robinhood. 

The New York-based firm is launching its new investing app next week, according to a CNBC report. The new app would offer discounted stock trading, a portfolio-building feature, and access to the investment bank's research 

Customers who download JPMorgan's banking app can get 100 free trades in the first year. 

Across the brokerage industry, firms have been under pressure to lower cost amid rising competition. Notably, California brokerage Robinhood pioneered free stock trading, forcing establishment firms like Fidelity and TDAmeritrade to slash their pricing. Most recently, Fidelity announced no-fee index funds. 

News of JPMorgan's new app wiped out $5.5 billion in market cap of the biggest online brokers on Tuesday morning with Charles Schwab and TD Ameritrade seeing the biggest impact.

Large firms like JPMorgan have also been encroaching on Silicon Valley's turf, offering more services that target millennials and inexperienced investors. Meanwhile, financial technology firms such as Robinhood and Betterment have been rolling out more advanced services to target wealthier clients. Robinhood, for instance, launched multi-leg options and Betterment, which had been the poster-child for automated investment advice, rolled-out a portfolio coupled with human advice. 

JPMorgan has already taken a big step towards winning over the hearts of younger Americans with a new branch-less banking service, Finn. And the app's autosave functionality mimics the key features of investing startup Acorns and Stash. 

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has said he looks to Amazon and its Prime business as inspiration for its banking efforts. 

Devin Ryan, an analyst at JMP Securities, said JPMorgan's recent moves shows that startups aren't immune from big banks copy-catting and then improving upon services they pioneered.

"The best features that are getting launched today are being replicated in some cases by the incumbents," Ryan said. "And in some cases the incumbents are launching them on their own."

See also:

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• UBS completely disassembled a Tesla Model 3 to compare it to the Chevy Bolt and BMW i3.
• The car's electronics are an easy winner thanks to their simplicity — but the bank worries such centralization could cause headaches down the road. 
• That makes two wins for Tesla in the teardown challenge so far, with only one more lap left. 
• Follow Tesla's stock price in real-time here. 

For "lap 2" of its Tesla teardown, UBS looked at every single piece of electronics inside a Model 3 to compare it to the competition and see how the company might turn a profit on its first mass-market vehicle.

Not surprisingly, the investment bank's teardown engineers were blown away by the simplicity and centrality of Tesla's electronics.

"There are two leading features of the Model 3’s electronics," the team of analysts lead by David Mulholland told clients in a report Tuesday.

"Firstly, the Model 3 offers AutoPilot, a Level 2 autonomous systems, as an option or post sale upgrade. This functionality is currently only available on certain luxury models. Two, the Model 3 offers superior connectivity, levering over-the-airs (OTA) to upgrade performance and features over the vehicle life. Most automakers do not have this ability, and those that do typically limit OTAs to infotainment."

Here's how the electronics architecture in a Model 3 compares to that of Chevy Bolt, which UBS also took apart for comparison:

However, they worry that such a dependence on one central controller could exacerbate problems

"We discussed Tesla's highly centralized approach with several experts, and it is possible Tesla's system may be too centralized," UBS said.

"There may be too much dependence on the central controller. This makes it difficult to test each system as it flows through the assembly line. An issue with electronics may not be identified until its future down the line making it harder to identify the root cause.

"Several experts thought the future should be both "centralized and distributed. For example, there are three main body controller domains, but it might be better to have more 'zones', each associated with part of the assembly process. The savings from reducing microcontrollers could be offset by higher failure costs on the assembly line."

Tesla's win in "lap 2" of UBS' teardown helps it maintain its lead among the Bolt and BMW i3. In the first part, powertrain, the investment bank said its engineers were blown away by Tesla's "'next-gen, military-grade" tech, but worry that those expensive components could make it tough for Tesla to turn a profit on its $35,0000 base model — if it's able to ever make one.

Stay tuned for lap 3: fit and finish.

Now read: 

• The legendary investor who predicted the past 2 bubbles breaks down how the 9-year bull market will end
• GOLDMAN SACHS: The market is about to be redefined by one huge shift — and buying these 14 stocks could help you make a killing
• It looks like 'Y2K all over again' for stocks as evidence of an imminent crash continues to pile up

SEE ALSO: Wall Street analysts were blown away by the Tesla Model 3's 'next-gen, military-grade' tech — and say that's why the base model will never turn a profit

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• JPMorgan announced Tuesday a digital-investing service that has free trades and no account minimum.
• Online brokers' stocks are getting hit hard on the news.
• JPMorgan shares are ticking higher.

Online brokers are under pressure Tuesday morning after JPMorgan announced a digital-investing service that gives users 100 free trades a year and has no account minimum.

The selling has wiped out $5.5 billion of market cap from the biggest online brokers, with Charles Schwab (-$2.64 billion) and TD Ameritrade (-$2.18 billion) seeing the biggest impact. E-Trade saw $715 million of market cap erased. JPMorgan shares are marginally higher.

Here's a look at the scoreboard:

• E-Trade (ETFC): -4.5%
• TD Ameritrade (AMTD): -6.4% 
• Charles Schwab (SCHW): -3.8%
• JPMorgan (JPM): +0.68%

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• Slack, the very popular work chat app, has raised $427 million in venture capital, at a valuation of "more than $7.1 billion." 
• All told, Slack has raised about $1.27 billion in venture capital — including in a $250 million mega-round led by Softbank in the September of 2017, which gave it a $5 billion valuation at the time.
• This valuation would make it that much more expensive for a larger tech company to buy it, and thus, at least a little less likely. But it's also been coy about a potential IPO, raising questions about the master plan. 
• All the while, Microsoft has been reinforcing Microsoft Teams, its own work chat product.

Slack, the work chat app that's become a poster child for Silicon Valley startup success, is on something of a hot streak. 

First, Slack bought the intellectual property to Atlassian's HipChat, which had been one of its chief rivals. Then, no less than Microsoft recognized Slack as a major rival to the Microsoft Office suite in an official regulatory filing.

Now, Slack can add one more to its win column, as it takes in a whopping $427 million in an investment round led by  Dragoneer Investment Group and General Atlantic, with participation from T. Rowe Price, Wellington Management, and others, including its existing roster of investors. 

This investment, in turn, leads to two other figures of interest: Slack is now valued at "more than $7.1 billion," according to a press release. And now, all told, Slack has raised just about $1.27 billion of venture capital. That includes the $250 million mega-round it took in last September at a $5 billion valuation, in a deal led by Softbank. 

Slack is also using the opportunity to tout its growth. It has 8 million daily active users (DAUs), and 70,000 paid teams, up from the 6 million DAUs and 50,000 paid teams it announced in September. Also in September, Slack said it was at $200 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), though it doesn't have an updated figure to share today.

More money means more questions

All of that said, this funding round raises some questions for the future of Slack. 

This $7.1 billion valuation makes it that much more unlikely that Slack will get bought up by a big tech company. If Amazon, for example, were to revisit its reported interest in buying Slack, it would likely have to pay a big premium over that valuation to seal the deal. Even for a gigantic tech company like Amazon, that would be a hefty price tag. 

At the same time, Slack has so far played coy about a possible IPO, declining to announce any plans one way or the other. With so much money going into the startup, though, some kind of exit seems like it will have to come sooner rather than later.

And all the while, Slack is facing down the continued threat of Microsoft, whose Microsoft Teams product comes bundled with the mega-popular Office 365 productivity suite for businesses. While Slack has its fair share of super-fans and champions, Microsoft wields significant might in this market, and the startup has its work cut out for it. 

Microsoft hasn't taken this lying down, either, and has made moves to make Teams more competitive with Skype — most recently, launching a free version of Microsoft Teams to hook in smaller groups, and hopefully lure them to the paid version.

So while the ability to raise so much cash, so quickly, is a definite feather in the company's cap, it now falls on Slack to show the world that it can take on its much larger competitor...and win. 

ONLY ON BI PRIME: IBM's CMO commands a team of 5,500 marketing experts — here’s why she made them behave like computer programmers

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Online investment platform eToro has inked a deal that will see it use bitcoin to pay for sponsorship at seven Premier League soccer teams.

Usually, stability in the Bitcoin price leads to an increase in the momentum of tokens. On August 21, tokens recorded the largest losses in the global crypto market. Tokens Unstable In the past 24 hours, tokens such as Tezos, Kin, Ark, Basic Attention Token (BAT), and Aelf (ELF) declined by 5 to 15 percent against

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• Kohl's beat on both the top and bottom lines.
• Comparable sales were positive for a fourth straight quarter.
• The retailer raised its guidance, but missed the consensus estimate.
• Watch Kohl's trade in real time here.

Kohl's reported second-quarter results on Tuesday that outpaced Wall Street estimates on both the top and bottom lines, but gave slightly disappointing guidance that sent shares down as much as 5% ahead of the opening bell.

The retailer earned an adjusted $1.76 a share on revenue of $4.31 billion. Those figures were ahead of the $1.64 and $4.29 billion that analysts surveyed by Bloomberg were anticipating. Additionally, comparable sales were positive for a fourth straight quarter, climbing 3.1% and easily beating the 2.6% gain that was expected.

"We saw strength across the business -- both our store and digital channels, all regions of the country, and our proprietary and national brands," CEO Michelle Gass said in the earnings release. 

Management raised its full-year adjusted earnings per share guidance to between $5.15 and $5.55 a share (up from $5.05 to $5.50), good for a midpoint of $5.35. The Wall Street consensus was at $5.36, according to Bloomberg.

Kohl's shares were up 45% this year through Monday.

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• JPMorgan's investment bank is quietly working on a new platform that would use crowdsourcing to accumulate massive amounts of data and help its clients make better business decisions. 
• The platform, called Roar by JPMorgan, would allow clients to exchange and safely store sensitive data, such as hospital records or satellite imagery, that's not in the public domain.

JPMorgan's corporate and investment bank is best known for advising businesses on billion dollar acquisitions, helping private unicorns tap into the public markets, and managing the cash of Fortune 500 companies.  

But now it is quietly working on a new platform that would go far beyond anything the firm has ever done, by using crowdsourcing to accumulate massive amounts of data to one day help its clients make complex decisions about how to run their businesses, according to people familiar with the project. 

For JPMorgan's clients like asset management firms and hedge funds, it could provide new data sets to help investors squeeze out more alpha from their models or better price assets. But JPMorgan is looking to go beyond the buy-side to help its large corporate clients, as well. The platform could, for example, help retailers figure out where to build their next store, inform manufacturers about how to revamp systems in their factories and improve logistics management for delivery services companies, the people said.  

The platform, called Roar by JPMorgan, would store sensitive private data, such as hospital records or satellite imagery, that's not in the public domain. Typically, this type of information is exchanged between firms on a bilateral arrangement so that is not improperly used. But Roar would allow clients to tap into this data, which they could then use in a secure fashion to make forecasts and gain business insights. 

Roar is being spearheaded by Samik Chandarana, a 19-year veteran of JPMorgan who was appointed in 2017 to a newly created position to unleash machine learning and data solutions onto the corporate and investment bank.

In a sense, the platform bares some resemblance to IBM's Watson, which culls through loads of data to make recommendations for businesses to make or save money. While Roar would solve similar problems for JPMorgan's clients, it's better thought of as a marketplace for data, according to people familiar with the project. 

It's also a different mission than the bank's JPMorgan Chase Institute, which bills itself as a global think tank that develops analysis and insights using its own proprietary data for economists and policymakers.

Roar is still in the early stages of development and it's being operated essentially as a startup within JPMorgan. The team right now is focused on creating the right types of security safeguards for the platform and has recently been seeking to hire data scientists and cryptographers.

In a recent job ad for a Roar engineer, the bank says it's trying to build "a next-generation prediction platform used by the bank, the bank’s clients, and eventually the entire world."

Right now, the platform is being tested internally with public data and JPMorgan is collaborating with academics to answer non-business questions such as predicting traffic patterns or future air pollution.

"Every single one of the big banks is trying to use alternative data sources, whether it be external or internal," Erkin Adylov, the founder of data provider Behavox, said in an interview. "It is a rat race and everyone is trying to take a different approach."

JPMorgan isn't the only financial services firm looking into new data projects. Goldman Sachs has also been building out a team to sell its own alternative data, as reported by Risk.net. 

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• New York University said last Thursday that it would offer free tuition to its current and future medical students. 
• NYU hopes that this move will help with the shortage of doctors in the US and encourage more students to go into primary care.
• Many physicians voiced their skepticism about this goal via Twitter, claiming that free tuition alone won't alleviate the financial barriers of pursuing a career in medicine. 

New York University made a bold move on Thursday when it said it would offer free tuition to current and future medical students. 

The university hopes this will alleviate the financial barriers that discourage many promising high school and college students from considering a career in medicine due to concerns with high medical school costs. Ideally, without looming medical student debt, students will choose to go into less high-earning areas of medicine such as primary care. 

"Saddled with staggering student loans, many medical school graduates choose higher-paying specialties, drawing talent away from less lucrative fields like primary care, pediatrics, and obstetrics and gynecology," NYU said in a news release. There's been a shortage of primary care physicians in the US, in part because of how much less they're paid compared to doctors in more specialized areas of medicine. 

The funding will draw from the university's $600 million endowment, which it built up over the past 11 years for this very purpose. While the new plan waives tuition which is around $55,000 per student at NYU, it doesn't not cover room and board or fees, which together are an additional $27,000, on average. 

But many doctors are skeptical that the free ride will lead to more medical students opting into primary care. On Twitter, they argued that just covering the tuition alone, won't be enough. Many experts believe that without altering the selective medical school application process or finding a way to incentivize students to go into lower-paid specialties like primary care in underserved or poor regions, not much will change in the field.

Even with the tuition break, students are still more likely to choose the option to go into more lucrative specialties like plastic surgery or cardiology. 

"If six-figure debt were enough to motivate, I’d be surprised," Mark Friedberg, senior physician policy researcher at the RAND Corporation told Business Insider.

That’s because of the pay gap in lifetime earnings between primary care doctors and doctors that go into specialties. Over a lifetime, primary care doctors can make as much as $3 million less than their counterparts in other specialties, Friedberg said. 

Getting a free medical school education

According to a 2018 report by the Association of American Medical Colleges, there will be a shortage of anywhere from 42,600 to 121,300 doctors by 2030. This is due in some part to the potential for staggering medical school debt that discourages some students from pursuing medicine. Several of the nation's top medical schools, in response, already offer scholarships that cover some or all of the costs of attendance based on either need or merit. 

• UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, for example, has a $100 million fund that pays for the entire cost of medical school for all four years, including tuition, fees, books and living expenses for its high-merit students, which are approximately 20% of those enrolled.  
• The Cleveland Clinic's Lerner College of Medicine in 2008 announced that it would cover tuition for all students admitted to their highly selective five year program, with one required research year tacked on at the end of the medical education. The class size for this program is capped at 32 students. 

Other programs cover tuition — with a catch.

• The National Institutes of Health's Medical Scientists Training Program covers the cost of attendance for 970 students across 49 schools, but students have to dedicate eight continuous years to get a MD and PhD, which means their medical education will be extremely research-oriented.
• And students completing the Health Professions Scholarship Program (HPSP) or the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) can have their tuition waived on the condition of military service. 
• With a focus on motivating doctors to get into primary care, the National Health Service Corps covers tuition for students who agree to work for four to six years in an under-served area. These areas — geographic or population-based — tend to have shortages of primary care doctors. 

Additionally, in-state tuition for many public medical schools in states like Texas are becoming affordable, costing around $15,000-$20,000 a year. 

Other factors at play 

Skeptics of NYU's free tuition plan say it glosses over other issues that are creating a physician shortage. 

One is the increasing difficulty of getting into medical school. From 2006 to 2016, the volume of medical school applicants has increased by 36%, but acceptance rates have either steadily decreased or stayed the same. This means medical programs are becoming increasingly selective about who they admit. NYU's average GPA and MCAT scores for its current first year class are both in the 99th percentile. 

NYU's current freshman class is 93 students, a decrease from the class sizes of previous years, which were in the 120-130 range. 

According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, in 2017, of the 51,680 applicants who applied to medical schools, only 21,338 students matriculated. That means from the total populations of students who wanted to become doctors post-undergraduate, only 41% make it to medical school. 

And even before pre-med students step into the doors of a medical school, there are a lot of costs. 

The MCATs, standardized medical school admission tests, costs $315 dollars to take and is a grueling seven hours long. The application fee for each medical school is around $100, and on average, each student applies to about 16 schools each application cycle. That's about a $2,000 investment up front. And not every applicant is successful.  

After medical school, each student is matched to a residency program, where they'll spend another four years at, and more if they choose to specialize. During residency, students make around $40,000-$60,000 a year, mostly to cover living expenses. 

It remains to be seen whether current NYU students alter their career paths and disproportionately get into lower-paying areas like primary care and pediatrics. And even if they do, Friedberg said, it might not do much if those doctors decide to practice in areas of the country that don't have a shortage. 

SEE ALSO: NYU is offering free tuition for all its current and future medical students

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Here is what you need to know. 

Trump doubles down on claims that China and the EU are currency manipulators. "What they're doing is making up for the fact that they're now paying... hundreds of millions of dollars and in some cases billions of dollars into the United States Treasury," President Donald Trump told Reuters. "And so they're being accommodated and I'm not. And I'll still win."

Trump says he's "not thrilled" about Fed rate hikes. He added that he would keep criticizing the central bank if rate hikes continued.

The dollar is falling. The US dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of its peers, trades down 0.34% at 95.57 after Trump's comments.  

Bank of America names 2 sectors investors should be buying into as the bull market makes history.  The bull market is one day away from becoming the longest in history, as measured by its rise from the trough hit in March 2009, and Bank of America says it's not ending anytime soon, mainly because earnings growth is so strong.  

Elon Musk says Tesla could "maybe" make a $25,000 model. "I think in order for us to get up to…a 25,000 car, that’s something we can do," the Tesla told YouTube personality Marques Brownlee. "If we work really hard, I think maybe we can do that in three years."

BHP Bilton announces a record dividend. The mining giant said statutory profit fell 37% due to its fatal Brazil mine disaster, but announced a record dividend of $0.63 a share. 

Nvidia announces its next generation of GeForce graphics cards. The chip maker gained 1.23% on Monday after announcing its new lineup of GeForce graphics cards, which give everyday consumer access to ray-tracing technology for the first time.

The world's largest publicly traded marijuana company hits a record high. Shares soared more than 11% on Monday, hitting a record high of $37.65 apiece, just days after Constellation Brands, the maker of Corona beer and Svedka vodka, upped its stake to 38%.

Stock markets around the world are higher. China's Shanghai Composite (+1.31%) led the gains in Asia and France's CAC (+0.74%) is out front in Europe. The S&P 500 is set to open up 0.23% near 2,864.

Earnings reports keep coming. Kohl's, TJX, and Toll Brothers report ahead of the opening bell.

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

Bitcoin is mimicking the price action witnessed in early April, which indicates the corrective rally could gather pace in the next few days.

Cryptocurrency trading will not be part of the features of Swiss stock exchange’s new digital asset platform. This decision is not due to the lack of capacity to implement such, but basically an issue of priority. “The capability is there to do it, but to be honest it’s not a priority. There are plenty of

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• French Oil company Total announced it will exit Iran on Monday.
• The news comes after the US applied pressure on foreign firms doing business with Iran.
• "Anyone doing business with Iran will NOT be doing business with the United States," President Donald Trump said on August 7.
• Other European countries have also announced their withdrawal from the country, including shipping giant Maersk and car maker Peugeot.

Total, France’s largest energy company, has pulled out of a large Iranian energy project under pressure from the United States.

The Iranian oil minister announced the withdrawal of Total from the country on Monday, RT and DW reported.

"Total has officially left the agreement for the development of phase 11 of South Pars [gas field]," Iran Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said, according to government-run ICANA news agency and RT.

The withdrawal was sparked by a reinstatement of US sanctions which cover foreign firms doing business with the Tehran. President Donald Trump tweeted earlier this month: "Anyone doing business with Iran will NOT be doing business with the United States."

Total said in a statement given to DW: "Total has notified the Iranian authorities of its withdrawal from the contract following the 60-day deadline for obtaining a potential waiver from the US authorities. Despite the backing of the French and European authorities, such a waiver could not have been obtained."

Total had committed to work on the South Pars gas field, which borders Iran and Qatar and holds the largest natural gas reserves in the world. The project is worth $4.8 billion.

Other European firms including Maersk and Peugeot have also recently left Iran, despite pledges from EU officials to shield them from the US sanctions.

In May, EU officials said they would enforce a "blocking statute" which was planned to protect European firms from sanctions.

"As the European Commission, we have the duty to protect European companies. We now need to act, and this is why we are launching the process to activate the 'blocking statute' from 1996," EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said before his July meeting with President Trump.

The US withdrew from the nuclear deal they signed with Iran in 2015. The agreement had lifted crippling sanctions on Iran in return for a commitment from the Islamic Republic to abandon its nuclear enrichment programme. But the US has since reinstated sanctions on Iran.

The EU, China, and Russia condemned the US sanctions and said they would only recognize an agreed mandate form the United Nations.

China is defying the sanctions, continuing its trade with Iran and importing around 767,000 barrels of Iranian oil a day, giving the country a lifeline and keeping China’s needs for oil met, Reuters reported.

The US sanctions came back into force on August 7 on cars, gold, and other metals. A second round is due to take effect on November 4 which will be more severe, targeting oil, shipping, and the Iranian Central Bank.

SEE ALSO: Trump drops the sanctions hammer on Iran — but Putin could come to Tehran's rescue

DON'T MISS: Iran's currency plunges to a record low as US sanctions near

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

• President Donald Trump has publicly criticized the Federal Reserve's current path of interest-rate hikes for the third time in a month.
• The criticism revived concerns about the US Federal Reserve's political independence.
• Presidents have pressured the Fed before, most notably Richard Nixon.
• Nixon convinced then-Fed Chairman Arthur Burns to keep interest rates low, leading to nearly a decade of economic problems.

US President Donald Trump once again broke with White House convention on Tuesday, criticising the policies of the Federal Reserve and its chair, Jerome Powell.

In an interview with Reuters, Trump said he was "not thrilled" by Fed chairman Jerome Powell's decision to raise interest rates and would continue to criticize the Fed if interest rate hikes continued. It followed reports earlier in the day that Trump had criticised Powell at a private GOP fundraiser.

Trump's criticisms of the Fed are nothing new. The president made similar comments in an interview with CNBC as recently as late July. But the latest comments remain significant given the long-standing tradition that presidents do not comment on matters of monetary policy.

While the White House attempted to assuage concerns by reiterating the president's support for the Fed's independence, the comments raise the spectre of a huge policy mistake made in the 1970s.

Richard Nixon, the Fed, and stagflation

The Federal Reserve's structure is unique within the US bureaucratic system. It operates within government but simultaneously remains relatively independent, with only some oversight from Congress.

The Fed's independence is couched in the belief that for a central bank to achieve its aims — ensuring financial stability and long-term growth — it should be free from the pressure that might be exerted by politicians seeking to alter policy for their own ends, rather than putting the country's prosperity first.

The most notable example of a president violating this edict of independence occurred under Richard Nixon in the 1970s.

In the run-up to the 1972 election, Nixon wanted to present the country with a strong economy and low unemployment. To do so, Nixon swapped out Fed Chairman William McChesney Martin with his pick, Arthur Burns.

Nixon pressured the new Fed chairman to keep interest rates low to help maintain lower unemployment. The released Nixon tapes revealed numerous conversations between the president and Burns in which Nixon pressures the Fed chair to keep rates low. Nixon even told advisers "we'll take inflation if necessary, but we can't take unemployment."

Burns did, in fact, keep rates relatively low but it proved to be disastrous as it helped to usher in a period of stagflation — high inflation, high unemployment, and low economic growth.

Not until Paul Volcker took over the Fed nearly a decade later and ratcheted up interest rates in what is known as the "Volcker Shock" would the issue be truly corrected.

Other incidents, including President George H.W. Bush complaining about the policies of his Fed chair, Alan Greenspan, have also occurred, but Bush's comments were far more muted than Nixon's extended pressure.

Defenders of Fed independence point to the Nixon example to support their argument that politicians should not attempt to tamper with monetary policy. There is also empirical evidence to support this claim.

Gregory Daco, chief US economist at Oxford Economics, pointed to research by Alberto Alesina and Lawrence Summers that showed in countries with a politically influenced central bank had higher inflation.

"While reviewing 16 OECD economies, they showed that countries with independent central banks generally had lower inflation without 'suffering any output or employment penalty'," Daco said. "As such, central banks acting outside of the political sphere of influence would be most desirable in any country."

While Trump is far away from Nixon's level of interference, Daco said it is an important theme to keep an eye on.

"While current conditions are very different from those of the 1970s, we must not forget that the premise of central bank independence rests on the advantage of insulating monetary policy from short-sighted political objectives," he said. "While inflation expectations are currently well anchored, history shows us that a pervasive lack of central bank independence can rapidly, and without warning, lead to rising inflation and economic instability."

SEE ALSO: Trump doubles down on claims that China and the EU are currency manipulators and warns: 'I'll still win'

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

• Trump used an interview with Reuters to double down on claims that China is a currency manipulator.
• He also accused the European Union of currency manipulation.
• Trump has leveled these accusations numerous times before, and has frequently threatened to place China on a Treasury department list of currency manipulators.

US President Donald Trump has doubled down on claims that both China and the European Union are deliberately manipulating their currency.

"I think China’s manipulating their currency, absolutely. And I think the euro is being manipulated also," Trump said in an interview with Reuters. He also publicly criticised Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in the same interview, breaking presidential convention.

"What they’re doing is making up for the fact that they’re now paying... hundreds of millions of dollars and in some cases billions of dollars into the United States Treasury," Trump told Reuters.

"And so they’re being accommodated and I’m not. And I’ll still win."

Trump has frequently criticised China for his belief that Beijing is artificially weakening the yuan in order to make Chinese exports more competitive, something he believes China is doing to hurt the US economy.

In April, he tweeted: "Russia and China are playing the Currency Devaluation game as the U.S. keeps raising interest rates. Not acceptable!"

Prior to his election as president, he wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal in which he claimed that from "day one of a Trump administration, the US Treasury Department will designate China a currency manipulator."

Nearly two years on from his election, however, the Treasury has so far failed to formally name China as a manipulator, despite Trump's accusations.

The Treasury Department releases semiannual reports on the foreign exchange policies of major trading partners where they monitor for currency manipulation. The latest report, released in June, said China runs a trade and current account surplus with the US. But officials said Beijing had not been directly intervening in its currency market.

Unlike most other currencies that float freely, China's central bank intervenes to keep the currency in a trading range but maintains that it does not.

SEE ALSO: The world's biggest shipping company says Trump's trade war will hurt America more than anyone else

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

• The US dollar is falling on Tuesday morning. 
• The slide comes after Trump said he was "not thrilled" with the Fed raising interest rates.
• You can follow live currency movements on Markets Insider.

LONDON — The dollar is falling against the pound and euro on Tuesday morning after US President Donald Trump publicly criticised the Federal Reserve for raising interest rates.

Trump said in an interview with Reuters on Monday that he was "not thrilled" by Fed chairman Jerome Powell's decision to raise interest rates and would continue to criticize the Fed if interest rate hikes continued. It followed reports earlier in the day that Trump had criticised Powell at a private GOP fundraiser.

Trump has attacked the Fed for raising rates in the past. The latest remarks have hurt the dollar as investors' expectations of future rate hikes have now been dampened.

The greenback is down 0.27% against the euro to 0.8680 at the time of writing (8.30 a.m. BST/3.30 a.m. ET), while the dollar is down 0.21% against the pound to 0.7798. The US dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, is down 0.19% to 95.55.

Neil Wilson, the chief market analyst at Capital.com, said in an email on Tuesday morning: "Trump’s not thrilled with the Fed raising rates. At the same time, he accused China and the EU of currency manipulation. Taken together with previous comments, we see a clear pattern of the president willing to talk the USD lower whenever it starts to look a bit toppy.

"Two ways to look at this: one, if done enough times it can exert a powerful influence over market expectations. Two, comments like these will produce diminishing returns for the president. I think on this one the market will come round again and the dollar bounces back, but nonetheless, it does appear the market is worried that the president will exert influence on Fed policy."

SEE ALSO: Trump blasts Fed interest rate hikes after reportedly complaining about Chairman Jerome Powell at a GOP fundraiser in the Hamptons

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

Prasit Srisuwan, a well known Thai stock investor who has been roped into the ongoing probe over a $24 million bitcoin fraud case has denied being a party to the fraud. The Bangkok Post reports that Srisuwan told a press conference that he is in fact a victim of a fraudulent transaction which left a

The post Thailand: Stockbroker Indicted in $24 Million Bitcoin Fraud Pleads Innocence as Victim appeared first on CCN

The amount of electricity consumed by bitcoin mining is not the global environmental crisis it is often portrayed to be. This is the professional assessment of Dr. Katrina Kelly-Pitou,  a research associate in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. ‘New Technologies Are Energy Intensive’ Writing in an article penned for non-profit academic media

The post Alarm Over Bitcoin Mining is a Red Herring: Energy Researcher appeared first on CCN

Bitcoin's price rises and falls wildly, making it high risk. Is there a more stable alternative?