The new company, which incorporates the Interledger and Codius technologies Thomas helped develop at Ripple, is now available to try out.

CBOE, the Chicago exchange that pioneered the listing of bitcoin futures in the U.S., has quietly begun telling market makers that it is close to launching a new cryptocurrency product: ethereum futures. Citing an unnamed source with knowledge of the situation, Business Insider reports that CBOE wants to become the first U.S. exchange to list

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Dogecoin price today had its Thank-God-Its-Friday moment after rising by more than 30 percent against the US Dollar. DOGE/USD began the day by continuing to its bull run. The pair on Thursday had jumped sharply from 0.00246-fiat to 0.00324-fiat, i.e. 31 percent amidst a strong buying spree. As the Asian trading session began today, the

The post Such Bulls Much Wow: Dogecoin Price Leaps Over 30 Percent appeared first on CCN

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

• Kylie Jenner's cosmetics line will soon be available in Ulta Beauty stores, the 21-year-old said Friday. 
• Shares of Ulta hit their highest level in more than a year following the announcement, which helped the retailer shrug off an otherwise grim quarterly earnings. 
• Follow Ulta Beauty's stock price in real-time here. 

Shares of Ulta Beauty surged more than 5% — hitting $268.69, their highest price in more than a year — thanks to a partnership with Kylie Jenner, who said the cosmetics chain will carry her eponymous brand in time for the holiday shopping season.

Ultra initially sank in after-hours trading Thursday following the Chicago-based company’s second-quarter earnings that missed Wall Street’s expectations, before the reality-star and entrepreneur’s announcement helped the stock rebound.

"I'm so excited to let you guys know that @KylieCosmetics will be coming to all @ultabeauty stores around the country this holiday!," the 21-year-old tweeted to her 25 million followers late Thursday, adding that there was "more to come…"

The partnership could be the catalyst Wall Street was waiting for.

"Looking forward, we think newness (Too Faced, Kylie Jenner, & others) expected in 2H should help reinvigorate traffic," Michael Goldsmith, an analyst at UBS, told clients Friday.

"Further, ULTA's flywheel continues to turn. As it gains scale, brands increasingly rely on it for growth. This is evident as it will start carrying Kiehl's, a €1 billion brand."

Jenner's wildly popular cosmetics line has propelled the reality star and half-sister of Kim Kardashian to an estimated net worth of $900 million. She graced the cover of Forbes in July, when the magazine heralded her as one of the US' richest "self-made" women, a claim that quickly garnered criticism for her wealthy upbringing.

And it's not the first time Jenner has moved a stock in dramatic fashion. In Febuary, shares of Snap slid 7% — wiping out $136 million of book value — when she tweeted that she doesn't open Snapchat anymore. 

Ulta is up 12% this year.

SEE ALSO: How Kylie Jenner makes her millions and set herself up to be the world's youngest self-made billionaire

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This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

• 2018 has witnessed a drop-off in price variations on digital asset exchanges.
• That trend is tied to the entrance of large Wall Street firms into the market, which makes it more stable, according to cryptocurrency data provider SFOX. 

Many crypto enthusiast long for a day when bitcoin will replace the entire financial system. But in the meantime, Wall Street might actually be helping the digital asset's long term adoption, one firm says. 

New data from SFOX, the cryptocurrency data provider, shows that 2018 has witnessed a drop-off in price variations on digital asset exchanges. The firm argues that trend is tied to the entrance of large Wall Street firms into the market, which makes it more stable. 

"Before institutional firms were actively trading crypto or heavily involved (before 2018) bitcoin price differences between exchanges varied as high as 4.5%," said Danny Kim, head of growth at SFOX. Now price differences are no more than one tenth of one percent, according to SFOX.

That stability is crucial as if there’s less price fluctuation, then more merchants would feel comfortable about accepting bitcoin, which may lead to wider adoption. 

A number of large Wall Street firms including Goldman Sachs and ICE, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, made headlines when they announced their intention to enter the market for digital assets. Behind the headlines, large money managers, hedge funds, and endowments have also been entering the market.

A recent report by Grayscale Investments, a subsidiary of Barry Silbert's Digital Currency Group, showed a steady growth of net inflows into its funds during the first half of 2018. More than half of the inflows this year came from so-called institutional investors, according to Grayscale's report. 

Their entrance has been made possible by developments in trading technology that has allowed high-frequency trading firms (HFTs) and other market markers to double down on their crypto efforts, Kim said .

"Some HFT firms have been trading since crypto 2014, but have limited themselves because the infrastructure wasn't there. Most if not all HFT firms require a FIX connection (an advanced type of connection to an exchange) at an exchange in order to trade efficiently," Kim said. "Crypto exchanges haven't offered FIX connectivity until recently."

Equity exchanges, such as the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, allow traders to house their trading computers in the same building as their matching engines. The service, known as colocation, is becoming more common in crypto. For instance, Gemini began offering colocation in 2017, followed by Coinbase this year. Those developments could help bring more price stability across markets for digital assets, Kim said. 

"As this trend continues, the stabilizing effects of institutional investment will extend beyond price spreads, and on to price fluctuations," Kim said. "Eventually, it could even come to the point where Bitcoin could come to resemble the stable coins people are looking to for payments and is used for Satoshi Nakamoto's original vision: a "Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System."

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
• Cboe is telling market makers that it's getting close to launching ether futures — and it could mark a big step in the crypto's evolution

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: The Chase Cards CEO on working with Jamie Dimon and her own success

The Bitfi cryptocurrency wallet, backed by John McAfee, had already caused controversy.

• Moody's downgraded Ford's bonds to one level above junk status this week — a move that has even the automaker's biggest fans worried.
• Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley writes that there's still room for Ford to execute on it's plan — if only he knew what that plan was.
• Follow Ford's stock price in real-time here. 

Ford got slapped with a downgrade from the debt-rating agency Moody’s on Wednesday — and its most bullish Wall Street analyst isn’t happy about the implications.

Writing to clients Friday, Morgan Stanley said the new negative outlook which accompanies the downgrade to Baa3 from Baa2 — one notch above a junk rating — means "there is still enough time to execute," but comes with a glaring warning: "we just wish we knew the plan."

The Moody’s downgrade on Wednesday came during a bull market, Morgan Stanley points out. In handing down its verdict, Moody’s writes the change "reflects the erosion in the company's global business position and the challenges it will face implementing its Fitness Redesign program."

Most notably, companies that are hit with ratings downgrades will face more expensive debt raises going forward. The bank points out that Ford's debt is already more expensive than its crosstown competitor General Motors. It's also "another sign that the company must execute significant structural change," analyst Adam Jonas writes.

"We estimate that Ford’s $11bn restructuring may be designed to shrink the revenue footprint by 20% to 30%, targeting roughly 25k in headcount reductions," he continued. Jonas has a $15 price target for Ford shares — the highest on Wall Street, according to a Bloomberg poll.

Still, he remains bullish despite the downgrade.

"We believe ratings agency action is an important catalyst to further focus investor and management attention on both the risks and the opportunities inherent in the Ford story," Jonas writes.

"While this has added to the risk of owning the stock, we believe it has also been somewhat discounted in the share price and does not change our view that the company can benefit from a change in strategy."

Ford shares are down 25% this year.

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Bitcoin on Friday recovered more than 3 percent from its intraday low near $6,800. The BTC/USD began the day continuing to its steady upside recovery and reached as above as 7020-fiat during the early Asian trading session. The bounce back could have been more effective had it managed to break above 7000-fiat for a more

The post Bitcoin Price Intraday Analysis: BTC/USD Reverses from $7,000 appeared first on CCN

• American Airlines flight attendants are protesting the company's new, more stringent sick policy and the ongoing trouble with uniforms that employees say are toxic.
• Some flight attendants are unhappy with the airline's new sick policy, which they call "extremely punitive" in light of the health issues that they claim have been brought on by American's uniforms.
• On October 1, American Airlines and US Airways flight attendants will work under the same collective-bargaining agreement.

On October 1, American Airlines and US Airways flight attendants will work under the same collective-bargaining agreement since the two carriers merged in 2013 to form the "new" American. 

However, a new attendance policy set to get into effect along with the collective-bargaining agreement has led some of American's flight attendants to protest.

The policy's stricter regulation of sick days, compounded by the airline's ongoing trouble with uniforms that employees say are toxic, has led to pushback from the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, the union that represents more than 27,000 of the company's cabin crew.

On Thursday, American Airlines flight attendants gathered in front of the company's headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas, to protest the policy change. 

"It's time for our company to wake up and understand exactly what's going on with their 27,000 frontline employees," Lori Bassani, national president of the APFA, said in a statement. "We are sick from toxic uniforms, sick from cabin fume events, and sick of being given the run-around with the flawed implementation and improperly programmed new scheduling systems."

According to Bassani, the airline's new attendance policy, which governs sick leave, is "extremely punitive and does not take into account the unique working conditions flight attendants endure daily."

"We are exposed to ill passengers, foreign foodborne illnesses, toxic cabin air, unhealthy sleep patterns, radiation exposure, and flight attendants cross multiple time zones, to name just a few," she added. 

In a statement to Business Insider, American Airlines said:

"Our new, combined attendance policy recognizes that life happens and provides our flight attendants with latitude to manage their time away from work. At the same time, it encourages attendance accountability which ensures we're appropriately staffed to provide our customers with the great service they expect and deserve when flying American."

Since late 2016, American Airlines flight attendants have complained of severe allergic reactions including extreme respiratory distress, nausea, headaches, cognitive issues, and full-body rashes attributed to the company's uniforms. 

According to a 2017 lawsuit filed by more than 100 of the airline's flight attendants, chemicals such as formaldehyde, toluene, cobalt, cadmium, captafol, chromium, copper, nickel, antimony, benzyl benzoate, hexyl cinnamic aldehyde, and benzaldehyde have been detected in the fabric.

The APFA claims it has received notice of more than 3,500 cases of suspected health reactions tied to the uniforms, which will be replaced in 2020.  

If you're an American Airlines employee and you have a story to share, reach out to this reporter at [email protected].

SEE ALSO: Emirates launched a new flight targeted at a small city in New Jersey that most Americans have never heard of — and it's a brilliant strategy

FOLLOW US: on Facebook for more car and transportation content!

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The world’s sixth most popular website has launched a service to allow readers to trade bitcoin, ethereum, and other cryptocurrency tokens directly through its platform. Yahoo.com, which according to Alexa ranks as the sixth most visited website both globally and with the U.S., announced this week that it has partnered with financial API developer TradeIt

The post Yahoo! World’s Sixth-Most Popular Website Now Supports Cryptocurrency Trading appeared first on CCN

The rapper Eminem has given bitcoin's public awareness a boost with a mention of the cryptocurrency on his just-launched album "Kamikaze."

• China's economy has started to slow dramatically, even before US tariffs have had a chance to make an impact.
• The government scrambling to boost growth, and walking back some of the measures it took to rein in debt and credit creation.
• This means it is once again encouraging infrastructure investment — one of biggest drivers of  China's debt bubble in the first place.
• Beijing knows this is risky, and an analyst at Societe Generale says that by 2019 it could lead to the full return of shadow government borrowing and/or shadow banking.

The Chinese economy has yet to feel the pain of US trade hostility, but it is slowing dramatically, to the alarm of government officials.

That means the government must once again stare down the Catch-22 of modern Chinese economics. Should it continue to crack down on easy credit and shadow financing to fight the massive debt bubble that's been building since the global financial crisis, or should it loosen the reins in order to keep the economy growing at around 6.5% regardless of any instability tariffs might bring?

This situation is coming to bare on Beijing hard and fast. Bloomberg reports that President Donald Trump could place $200 billion worth of tariffs on Chinese goods as early as next week.

And even without this pressure, Chinese economic data has been trending down all summer, and the government is looking for ways to stop the bleeding. That may mean returning to some old habits. As Societe Generale economist Wei Yao wrote in recent note to clients, "China has had no economic recovery that wasn't preceded by infrastructure stimulus" in the past 10 years.

The problem with that is that a lot of infrastructure spending was funded by shadow banking and local government financing that was either implicitly or explicitly backed by Beijing. It was one of the main drivers in growing China's debt bubble to the point that the government had to crack down.

Foreign governments, economists, financiers, and nongovernmental organizations like the International Monetary Fund all joined the chorus of people telling China to tighten its credit and slowly deflate its debt bubble years ago.

But infrastructure spending has always worked when China needed a growth injection, and in increasingly uncertain times, what's a country to do? 

What's broken

According to Yao the government's crackdown on infrastructure investment — which has fallen from growing 18.5% in 2017 to just 5.3% so far in 2018 — is the main factor in China's economic slowdown, just as it was a huge factor in its upswing.

From Yao's note:

"Infrastructure funding has suffered severely due to two lines of laudable deleveraging efforts - a clean-up of shadow government borrowing and a deleveraging campaign targeted at shadow banking activities.

We estimate that the combined impact is responsible for half of the year-to-date slowdown, and the rest could be explained by slower issuance of special local government bonds (LGBs), which also had a lot to do with tightening liquidity conditions in the bond market caused by financial deleveraging measures."

Until around May this wasn't a problem. China's economy was looking stable in 2018. For the first time since 2014, it rolled into the new year without incident. There was no stock market crash, no currency issue — nothing. The world thought the bubble was being deflated, and that — as China's leaders have always said — things were under control.

But as the year wore on that stability wore out. Now the Chinese yuan is falling and its stock markets are convulsing. Company earnings are hurting thanks, in part, to a lack of easy credit.

The entire world expected any tightening of credit to bring some instability. 

But the other edge of that sword is that China's so-called National Team of economists, officials and technocrats in China are also expected to step up when things get too weird. And so they have. That is why the Ministry of Finance is advocating another go at infrastructure spending, this time with private funds involved.

But no one knows exactly where that help begins, and where it ends. Especially not in the face of a US trade war.

Yao has noted a "dramatic" speed up in the issuance of local government bonds that fund infrastructure projects in recent weeks — one that could push infrastructure investment growth up to 10% in the second half of the year. However, this won't be enough to stabilize the economy if the housing market slows, as she expects it will, in 2019.

That's when the government may be tempted to bring back the shadow financing of infrastructure investment to keep growth around its 6.5% target.

"All in all, we think that the Chinese government will have to make a most difficult decision in 2019: to deleverage or not?" she wrote. "If it makes what we think is the right decision for the long term - to deleverage - then a sharper slowdown is almost certain next year. Based on the signs so far, this scenario looks increasingly likely." 

SEE ALSO: China's economy is starting to show its true colors again

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• Economic growth in India was 8.2% in the second quarter.
• That beat expectations for 7.6% growth and surpassed previous quarter GDP of 7.7%.
• A strong manufacturing sector and isolation from ongoing trade tensions helped power growth, analysts say.

India's economy expanded more than 8% between April and June from a year earlier, as a surge in manufacturing activity and spending powered the world's sixth-largest economy to its fastest growth in more than two years.  

Gross domestic product in the country grew 8.2% year-over-year last quarter, according to government data out Friday, up from 7.7% in the first three months of 2018. Analysts had forecast 7.6% growth. India is the world's fastest-growing economy and expanding more quickly than China, which reported 6.7% economic growth in the second quarter. 

CLSA analyst Christopher Wood noted resilience in the Indian stock market could signal the economy is accelerating at a time when many other markets in Asia may be near cyclical peaks. Isolation from an ongoing global trade war could be behind recent strength, he added. 

"One reason why is that India, as primarily a domestic-driven economy, is clearly much less exposed to Trump-driven trade concerns," Wood said. 

Growth also surpassed forecasts by the Reserve Bank of India, which has been grappling with a broad emerging market currency sell-off that has helped send the rupee to all-time lows. The central bank raised its benchmark rate by 50 basis points to 6.5% at its past two policy meetings.

SEE ALSO: 10 things you need to know before the opening bell (SPY, SPX, QQQ, DIA, KO, CRON, AAPL, CBOE)

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After weeks of claiming that its cryptocurrency wallet was unhackable despite being continually disproven, Bitfi has now raised its hands in the air in surrender. In a tweeted statement, the hardware wallet maker said it will no longer use the ‘unhackable claim’ in its promotional materials. “Effective immediately, we will be removing the “unhackable” claim

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• Amazon's stock is now more heavily bet against than Tesla's, according to data from S3 Partners. 
• The e-commerce giant dethroned Elon Musk's car company Thursday as the most heavily shorted stock as shares climbed above $2,000 for the first time.
• Follow Amazon's race to be the second $1 trillion company in real-time here. 

Less than one week after Tesla CEO Elon Musk ended his bid to take the electric-car company private, Amazon has passed it as the most-shorted US stock.

Short interest in Amazon climbed to $9.97 billion on Friday, according to data from S3 partners, passing the $9.83 billion in bets against Tesla’s stock, which for months has been the most-shorted name in the market.

"While there was some short covering the week after the tweet, there has still not been any significant net Tesla short covering on the Street," Ihor Dusaniwsky, head of research at financial-analytics firm S3 Partners, said in a note to clients, per Reuters.

"Any traders who have closed down their positions to realize some profits have been replaced by new ones looking for continued price weakness."

Short interest is calculated as a function of the number of shares sold short and the stock’s price. Tesla on Thursday briefly dipped below $300 — 22% off it's high of $389 during Musk's 16-day bid to take his company private — while Amazon climbed above $2,000 for the first time in its race to a $1 trillion market cap.

Still, depending on where Tesla’s stock goes from the $300 level, there's room for short interest to climb, Dusaniwsky said.

"A $300 Tesla price may be a signal of increased short selling since when Tesla’s stock price dipped below $300 per share in March, shares shorted climbed from 30.0 million to 41.6 million in just over two months," he told Reuters.

SEE ALSO: The SEC wants to make it easier for small-time investors to get in on companies like Uber or SpaceX

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• Lululemon Athletica's earnings beat on both the top and bottom lines.
• The retailer lifted its full-year guidance above Wall Street expectations.
• Shares jumped more than 10%.
• Watch Lululemon Athletica in real time here.

Lululemon Athletica shares are up more than 10% ahead of Friday's opening bell after the company posted strong second-quarter earnings and lifted full-year guidance.

The retailer reported adjusted earnings of $0.71 per share, beating the $0.49 that was expected by Wall Street analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Lululemon said its second quarter sales totaled $723.5 million, easily beating the $666.1 million estimate. Comparable sales were also strong, soaring 19% on a constant dollar basis, well above the 9.5% growth that was anticipated.

"We’re pleased to see the great results of Q2 across all parts of our business now extending into the current quarter," Stuart Haselden, Lululemon's chief operating officer, said in the earnings release. "This ongoing success positions us to achieve our 2020 goals and beyond."

Looking ahead, the company now sees its full-year earnings to be in the range of $3.45 to $3.53 per diluted share, up from its previous calculation of $3.10 to $3.18. Analysts had expected $3.25.

Lululemon shares are up 75% this year.

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Japanese e-commerce retail giant Rakuten has announced its foray into the cryptocurrency sector with its acquisition of crypto exchange ‘Everybody’s Bitcoin’ in a ¥265 million ($2.4 million) deal. In an announcement on Friday, the company revealed details of its 100% share acquisition of Tokyo-based crypto exchange Everybody’s Bitcoin through its subsidiary Rakuten Card. The share

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• Coca-Cola is buying Costa Coffee for $5.1 billion, a huge move into the coffee market.
• Costa is based in the UK, but has stores worldwide — here's where they all are.

Coca-Cola is buying the biggest coffee company in Europe, Costa Coffee, for $5.1 billion, it announced on Friday, making its first move into the coffee market.

Though most Costas are in Britain, part of the attraction will inevitably have been the chain's global reach, including 459 stores in China, almost 60 in India, and a solitary outlet in Vietnam.

This map shows you the breadth of Costa's reach, labelling each country with how many stores are there.

Here's the data in full:

Here's the full list as of May 2018.

UK 2,467

China 459

UAE 150

Poland 147

Ireland 114

India 57 

Saudi Arabia 56 

Kuwait 51

Czech Republic 45

Egypt 44

Russia 35

Qatar 30

Hungary 28

Spain 25

Cyprus 24

Bahrain 23

Oman 22

Bulgaria 21

Philippines 16  

Kazakhstan 12

Latvia 11

Malta 11

France 8

Singapore 6

Portugal 5

Jordan 4

Cambodia 4

Morocco 3 

Vietnam 1

Lebanon 1

Germany 1

Indonesia 1

Despite its global reach, Costa has a distinctive style that repeats itself all over the world. Business Insider published an in-depth store review based on a visit in London earlier today.

But there are, inevitably, some differences, and Costas can be seen next to some major landmarks.

There's a Costa right opposite the famous Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.

Here's what a store looks like in Jordan.

In Beijing, the capital of China...

...in Poznan, Poland...

And one by the coast in Qatar too... 

The news broke on Friday that one of Europe's largest coffee chains was selling for $5.1 billion – more than 16 times Costa's expected full-year earnings in 2018, Business Insider reported.

"Hot beverages is one of the few remaining segments of the total beverage landscape where Coca-Cola does not have a global brand," Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey said in a statement, Business Insider reported. "Costa gives us access to this market through a strong coffee platform."

The deal comes with the 3,912 worldwide stores.

Read the full details of the acquisition here.

Apart from in the United Kingdom, China has the most stores with nearly 460.

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Bitcoin is reporting a monthly loss for August, but its quick recovery from lows below $6,000 likely indicates a long-term bottom has been made.

Here is what you need to know.

Trump reportedly wants a massive escalation in the trade war with China. President Donald Trump wants to move forward with tariffs on another $200 billion worth of Chinese goods —after the public-comment period ends on September 6 — Bloomberg reports.

2 of the most successful stock pickers of 2018 say a trait shared by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos holds the key to their success. "And the founder/CEOs? We prefer them because they have an appetite to think longer-term and they're willing to take risk that a rent-an-MBA executive or a successor manager may not be willing to," Anthony Zackery, a portfolio manager at the Zevenbergen Genea Fund, told Business Insider.

Coca-Cola just became a giant threat to Starbucks after buying one of Europe's biggest coffee chains. The beverage giant has agreed to pay Whitbread 3.9 billion pounds, or $5.1 billion, for its British coffee-shop chain Costa Coffee.

Apple sends out invitations for a September 12 event. The tech giant is expected to reveal three new iPhone models and could also unveil other products such as an updated iPad Pro or the next version of its AirPods headphones.

Cboe is telling market makers that it's getting close to launching ether futures. The exchange is waiting on additional clarity from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and could launch by the end of 2018, a person with knowledge of the situation told Business Insider.

Lyft takes a step toward an IPO. The ride-services firm is in talks with an adviser for an initial public offering in March or April, Bloomberg says.

A notorious short-seller has come out swinging against a popular marijuana stock. Shares of the marijuana company Cronos plunged more than 28% on Thursday after Citron Research wrote it "appears to have been deceiving the investing public by purposely not disclosing the size of its distribution agreements with provinces — unlike every other major cannabis player."

Stock markets around the world are lower. Hong Kong's Hang Seng (-0.98%) led the losses in Asia, and Germany's DAX (-0.95%) trails in Europe. The S&P 500 is set to open down 0.14% near 2,897.

Earnings reporting is light. Big Lots reports ahead of the opening bell.

US economic data keeps coming. Chicago PMI and University of Michigan consumer confidence will cross the wires at 9:45 a.m. ET and 10 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is down 1 basis point at 2.85%.

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• Tesla CEO Elon Musk is an example of a chief executive who helped build his firm from the ground up and has big ambitions for its growth.
• Such founders are a huge draw for Zevenbergen Capital Investments, a Seattle-based firm that's also run by a founding CEO.
• The Zevenbergen Genea Fund has surged 44% this year, outranked only by one fund in Morningstar's universe of US equity funds. 
• Of visionary founder/CEOs, a Zevenbergen portfolio manager said: "They're willing to take risk that a rent-an-MBA executive or a successor manager may not be willing to."

It's almost impossible to talk about Tesla without mentioning its CEO Elon Musk. 

Even before his high-profile attempt to take the electric-car maker private, Tesla's brand identity was inextricably linked to the entrepreneur who had the vision for the company and is still firmly in the driver's seat. 

This founder/CEO trait is shared by Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Reed Hastings of Netflix. And it's a cornerstone of the investing strategy that has helped Zevenbergen Capital Investments produce one of the best-performing equity portfolios of this year.

The Zevenbergen Genea Fund has earned a 44% year-to-date return, and only one US equity fund in Morningstar's universe boasted a stronger performance as of Thursday. It aims to invest in large, disruptive companies at their early stages of growth. Its performance easily trounces the 5% average scored by all US funds, the S&P 500's 8.8% return, and the Russell 3000's 10% gain, even as fewer mutual funds succeed at beating their benchmarks this year compared to 2017. 

The Seattle-based firm is a poster child of its own strategy. Nancy Zevenbergen founded the firm in 1987 and still sits on the six-person investment team.

"It's hard to overstate the importance of people at Zevenbergen Capital, but also as an investment approach," Anthony Zackery, one of the firm's portfolio managers, said. 

"And the founder/CEOs? We prefer them because they have an appetite to think longer-term and they're willing to take risk that a rent-an-MBA executive or a successor manager may not be willing to."

Despite Musk's recent run-ins with investors, reporters, and regulators, Zevenbergen Capital is standing by Tesla for the long haul; it was the Genea fund's third-largest holding as of the most recent regulatory disclosure on June 30.

"We still believe in what they're doing," Zackery told Business Insider on Wednesday. "The company has executed on what it set out to do, maybe not always when they set out to." 

Other examples of founder-led companies abound in the Zevenebergen Genea portfolio including Amazon, its top holding, and Netflix. 

Bezos and Hastings "recognized where the world was moving early and were not afraid to invest aggressively in building out the infrastructure in the case of Amazon or content in the case of Netflix," Joseph Dennison, a Zevenbergen Capital portfolio manager, said. 

Still fired up

There are founders of smaller companies who also attracted Zevenbergen's investor dollars. They include Chip Paucek, the CEO and co-founder of 2U, a $287 million company that helps colleges offer online-degree programs. Its stock has soared 36% this year and more than 500% since the company went public in 2014.

Paucek recognized early that the internet can create a better experience for graduate educators, and "displays a rare passion for the education space and a business he has built essentially from scratch," Dennison said.

Another example is Michael Hsing, the co-founder of Monolithic Power Systems, a semiconductor company.  

"He doesn't have to work another day in his life, but when we asked him 'what's your future with the company,' he's still fired up," Zackery said. "He's still really excited about what's going to happen in the next 5-10 years, and that shows the importance or the value of these founder/CEOs who have long-term visions."

It's about big risk and big reward

The faith that entrepreneurs display in their companies also informs Zevenberg Capital's conviction in active management, even though investor dollars continue to flood the passive space.

According to a Moody's report released earlier in August, investors have pulled more money from actively-managed stock funds at the fastest year-to-date pace on record. And, Goldman Sachs found that through August 15, $78 billion flowed into US equity exchange-traded funds and passive mutual funds, while $84 billion was withdrawn from US active mutual funds.

But like active management, building a successful company is about having the nerve to take big swings. 

"Would Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett be three of the richest people on earth if they'd just owned S&P 500 ETFs or index funds?" Zackery asked, responding in the negative.

"They assumed significant risk on endeavours they had significant conviction in, and that's our approach to active investing." 

It's worth mentioning that although Buffett has been a huge advocate of passive S&P 500 funds for the everyday investor, his company, Berkshire Hathaway, built its fortunes by investing in specific, successful companies.  

At the end of the day, company fundamentals still matter, especially if an investor wants to avoid the trap of a cult of personality.

The key thing Zevenbergen considers on a company's books is its revenue growth. That's because it's as clean a read as one can get on customer demand, pricing, and market-share opportunities. A 15% growth rate is the firm's typical hurdle.

"Our product is an unapologetic mix of art and science," Dennison said.

SEE ALSO: BANK OF AMERICA: One of Wall Street's most dreaded recession signals is being wildly distorted — here's what really matters and what may happen next

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Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten is planning another step into the cryptocurrency industry with the acquisition of a local bitcoin exchange.

• Germany’s financial regulator BaFin has sided with the Bank of England and demanded that Brussels take action to prevent mayhem in the derivatives markets post-Brexit.
• The move shows an alignment with the BoE which has warned that $67 trillion of interest rate swaps and other derivatives could be in trouble if no political support is given to the banks.
• The EU Commission has so far expressed the view that financial regulation post-Brexit is for the banks and other financial companies to sort out.
• "It is almost impossible to fix that problem exclusively just by one side of the stakeholders involved" BaFin’s president, Felix Hufeld told Bloomberg, adding, there has to be "a solution on a political level."

The German financial regulatory authority, BaFin, has demanded that EU officials in Brussels take urgent action to prevent mayhem in the derivatives market after Brexit.

The change in German policy is a sign of support for the Bank of England which has warned that $67 trillion of interest rate swaps and other derivatives could flounder if a plan is not agreed on between Europe and the UK before Brexit, The Daily Telegraph reported.

The EU Commission has so far expressed the view that financial regulation post-Brexit is for banks and other financial companies to sort out, even in the event of a wider deal, despite European, Asian and US banks arguing that they cannot do it alone, and that the fall-out if no action is taken could create a global financial shock.

"It is almost impossible to fix that problem exclusively just by one side of the stakeholders involved, let it be the industry itself or individual supervisors," BaFin’s president, Felix Hufeld told Bloomberg at a forum in Frankfurt, adding that the industry must be taken seriously.

There has to be "a solution on a political level" outlining a legislative or regulatory structure to prevent disruption, Hufeld said.

Britain has taken measures to try and guarantee "contract continuity" for foreign banks operating in the City, even if passporting rights are lost, but the EU hasn’t yet reciprocated.

The Bank of England and German regulator BaFin are now working to the same goal, an indication that Germany is starting to step into the negotiations as the threat of a no-Brexit deal persists.

SEE ALSO: $71 billion Japanese giant Panasonic is pulling its European headquarters out of the UK — and Brexit is to blame

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BitPay merchants can now receive settlement payments in Bitcoin Cash, making it the second digital currency settlement option for merchants on the platform. For merchants to receive their settlement in Bitcoin Cash, they will need a wallet address that can receive BCH or they can use the in-built wallet on BitPay. Bitcoin Cash was added

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• US beverage giant Coca-Cola will buy British coffee shop chain Costa in a surprise acquisition.
• Costa, which is currently owned by Whitbread, is being sold for £3.9 billion ($5.1 billion).
• Coca-Cola currently has no presence in the coffee market, and wants to use the deal to expand into the space.
• The move is likely to cause ripples for major coffee chains in the US like Starbucks.
• Shares in Whitbread jumped almost 20% at the open on the news.

Coca-Cola has announced a surprise move to buy Costa Coffee, one of Europe's largest cafe chains, from current owners Whitbread for £3.9 billion ($5.1 billion) in a move likely to send shockwaves through the coffee industry.

Whitbread, which also owns budget UK hotel chain Premier Inn, said that its board had unanimously approved the deal, and that it expects the sale to be completed by the first half of 2019.

"This transaction is great news for shareholders as it recognises the strategic value we have developed in the Costa brand and its international growth potential and accelerates the realisation of value for shareholders in cash," Whitbread's chief executive Alison Brittain said in a statement released to the stock market on Friday morning.

The £3.9 billion figure put on the deal represents a multiple of more than 16 times Costa's expected full year earnings in 2018.

Whitbread had not hidden its plans to spin out the Costa brand, but the sale to Coca-Cola has come as something of a surprise to many in the market, given that Coca-Cola currently has no presence in the coffee market. That lack of a presence is exactly why Coca-Cola wants to buy Costa, however.

“Hot beverages is one of the few remaining segments of the total beverage landscape where Coca-Cola does not have a global brand," Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey said in a statement. "Costa gives us access to this market through a strong coffee platform."

Coca-Cola's move into coffee is part of a growing trend from soft drink manufacturers, who are trying to find ways of continuing to grow while consumers move away from sugary, fizzy drinks — which in many markets are now heavily taxed.

Earlier in August, for example, Pepsi paid $3.2 billion to buy SodaStream, which allows consumers to make their own carbonated beverages at home.

Costa's sale to Coca-Cola is likely to be seen as a direct challenge to the dominance of Starbucks in the US coffee space. Costa has more UK stores than Starbucks, and prior to the takeover was already expanding globally. In October 2017 it bought out Yueda, a Chinese coffee chain with which it had operated a joint venture in the country for over a decade.

Costa is the second largest coffee shop chain in China, although its presence there is currently dwarfed by Starbucks' 2,800 stores.

Not only does Coca-Cola's deal with Costa threaten Starbucks' store based operations, but also its retail arm, which sells branded iced coffees and coffee drinks in convenience and grocery stores around the world. In the UK, Costa operates thousands of self-service coffee machines in stores and gas stations, a model which could be expanded to the US.

Shares in Whitbread surged at the open on Friday as a result of the deal, climbing almost 20%, as the chart below shows:

SEE ALSO: $71 billion Japanese giant Panasonic is pulling its European headquarters out of the UK — and Brexit is to blame

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In the past 24 hours, the Bitcoin price has recovered from $6,800 to $7,000, as buy pressure in the higher region of $6,000 prevented a further fall to mid-$6,000. As bitcoin price rebounded and averted a large drop to $6,500, most tokens and small market cap cryptocurrencies recovered, pushing the valuation of the cryptocurrency market

The post Bitcoin Price at $7,000: Market Recovers After Minor Drop, WaltonChain Surges 30% appeared first on CCN

After having tracked crypto prices for years, Yahoo Finance now adds a new feature to let users trade 4 cryptos on its iOS app, including dogecoin.

• Elon Musk is welcoming the criticism of Steve Bannon, who called the Tesla CEO "an immature man child" in an interview with CNN.
• "Can Steve Bannon please insult me some more? Best PR I've had in a while," Musk quipped on Thursday night.
• Bannon, a one-time strategist for President Donald Trump who was ousted from the White House last summer, has been rebuking Silicon Valley giants like Google and Facebook, echoing Trump's unsubstantiated claims that the companies are biased against political conservatives.
• Bannon accused Musk of lying during a weeks-long tarry over a proposal to take Tesla private and called the company "out of control."

Elon Musk would like Steve Bannon to criticize him some more.

Responding to a CNN interview in which the one-time strategist to President Donald Trump rebuked the Tesla CEO and other Silicon Valley giants and called them "man childs," Musk quipped, "Can Steve Bannon insult me some more?"

"Best PR I've had in a while," Musk said Thursday night.

Bannon, who was ousted from the White House in August 2017, has been lashing out at tech companies, echoing Trump's unsubstantiated claims that places like Google and Facebook are politically biased against conservatives.

Trump leaned in on that claim Wednesday afternoon, sharing a video on his personal Twitter account that urged Google to "stop the bias." Google summarily dismantled Trump's argument.

It is not entirely clear why Musk welcomed Bannon's insults. He is not known to take kindly to anything he interprets as a personal slight, as demonstrated by his responses to an avalanche of negative press earlier this summer.

Currently, Musk faces the threat of a libel lawsuit stemming from taunts he lobbed at a British diver involved in the dramatic Thai cave rescue in July.

SEE ALSO: Steve Bannon lets rip on 'man child' Elon Musk

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Based on a survey conducted by Statistca on 15,000 individuals, Turkey has the highest percentage of population that has invested in the crypto market. According to the data released by Statistica shown below, 18 percent of the country’s investors have purchased cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum in the past few years. Motive of Residents in

The post Mass Adoption of Crypto Far from Being Achieved, Best Chance in Turkey appeared first on CCN

• The SEC charged a former cloud security executive with insider trading on Thursday.
• Amer Deeba, chief commercial officer at Qualys, allegedly gave his two brothers advanced warning of poor financial results in Q1 2015 and encouraged them to sell all of their shares in the company. 
• The financial results ultimately tanked the company's stock 25% the day after earnings, and saved the brothers a total of $581,170, according to the SEC complaint.

A longtime enterprise tech executive was charged with insider trading on Thursday by the Securities and Exchange Commission which alleged that he tipped off his two of his brothers and helped them dump shares in his company ahead of an ugly quarterly earnings report.

Amer Deeba, the defendant, worked at Qualys for 17 years, most recently as chief commercial officer of the cloud security and services company. He had special access to Qualys CEO Philippe Courtot, according to the complaint, and was the only senior executive to sit near Courtot in the office. 

The SEC alleges that Deeba was privy to a significant miss on revenue in the company's Q1 2015 quarter, and encouraged his brothers to sell of their shares on that information before the company announced its results.

Deeba, who has settled the case without admitting or denying the allegations, will be barred for two years from serving as an executive or director at any SEC-reporting company and will pay a penalty of $581,170 — the amount of losses his tip allegedly saved his brothers.

Courtot called Deeba on April 7 and informed him of the low sales figures, according to the complaint. Deeba, who was in Lebanon with his family at the time of the phone call, allegedly passed this information along to his two brothers. Each held shares in the company thanks to gifts Deeba had issued them in 2005, long before the company's 2012 IPO.

Qualys's stock price dropped 25% the day following its May 4 earnings announcement, according to the SEC complaint.

Because they sold their stock ahead of the news, Deeba's two brothers avoided losing a total of $581,170, according to the complaint. Deeba and Qualys could not immediately be reached for comment.

SEE ALSO: The SEC is accusing a startup founder of stealing $48 million from investors to fund private jets and a dairy cow farm

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• New Mexico state police say at least four people were killed in a Greyhound bus crash in northwestern New Mexico on Thursday, local news media reported.
• New Mexico State Police said a semi-truck blew a tire and crossed into oncoming traffic, colliding with the bus.
• Forty-nine people were on the bus, Greyhound said.
• Dozensof injured passengers were taken to local hospitals. 

At least four people were killed in a crash involving a Greyhound bus and a semi-truck in McKinley County, New Mexico on Thursday afternoon, local law-enforcement officials said.

New Mexico State Police said the semi-truck experienced a tire blowout and crossed into oncoming traffic, colliding with the Greyhound bus. Police and emergency personnel were responding to the scene along Interstate 40.

Forty-nine passengers were on the bus, a Greyhound official told KOB-TV. University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque was notified to expect six patients. Gallup Indian Medical center reportedly received 37 patients, NBC News reported, adding that at least four of the injured were taken to a trauma center.

The bus was reportedly traveling from Albuquerque to Phoenix, and was scheduled to arrive in Los Angeles on Friday morning.

Ten investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board are expected to arrive at the scene Friday.

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This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

Anonymity-centric cryptocurrency monero may be the best buy in crypto right now, and bitcoin’s not far behind. The ripple price (XRP), on the other hand, could be primed for a historic crash. Bitcoin, Monero Have Bright Futures That’s according to a new report from initial coin offering advisory and research firm Satis Group, which attempts

The post Monero Headed to $18k, Ripple Price Primed for 97% Crash: Research appeared first on CCN

Anonymity-centric cryptocurrency monero may be the best buy in crypto right now, and bitcoin’s not far behind. The ripple price (XRP), on the other hand, could be primed for a historic crash. Bitcoin, Monero Have Bright Futures That’s according to a new report from initial coin offering advisory and research firm Satis Group, which attempts

The post Monero Headed to $18k, Ripple Price Primed for 97% Crash: Research appeared first on CCN