This piece is sponsored by KingsCrowd — the data platform for startup investing and private companies. Invest in KingsCrowd’s latest crowdfunding round here. Last week, SVB Financial — the holding company for Silicon Valley Bank — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The bank’s fall is a major blow to startups. Silicon Valley Bank was a…
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The Voice Chatbot Wars: Alexa is Losing Badly
The struggles of Amazon continue. Today, they’re taking it in the shin as we focus on their voice assistant, Alexa. Amazon’s big Alexa bet is struggling nearly 10 years after launching. Last year, the division was on pace to lose $10B, with one former employee calling Alexa a “colossal failure.” Alexa’s technology is falling behind….
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Hindenburg Research Attacks Fintech Giant Block with Short Report
Two words you never want to be associated with your company: Hindenburg Research. Hindenburg is famous for betting against companies with their short reports. They famously erased $100B+ in Adani Group’s market value — and exposed EV startup Nikola’s fraud, which led to its CEO’s criminal prosecution. Now they’re back with a 17K+ word report…
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Ban or No Ban? TikTok Faces Critical Moment as its CEO Testifies in Front of Congress
TikTok’s CEO is testifying in front of Congress today — where he’ll try to convince lawmakers that TikTok isn’t a national security threat. You mean this app? The app is much more than dancing videos now: TikTok has 150M monthly active US users — nearly half the US population. Nearly a quarter of US adults…
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Bill Gates is Bullish on AI: “The Age of AI has Begun”
Bill Gates is bullish on AI. In an op-ed on his blog, he talked about AI’s benefits, risks and potential. He saw two technologies that were “revolutionary”: The first was in 1980 with graphical user interfaces, leading to modern operating systems (i.e., Windows, MacOS). The second with OpenAI — seeing AI as important as the…
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Highlights From the Fed; Powell Continues His Fight Against Inflation
Gather around everyone — as we dissect Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s words to see when the pain will end Fed will stop raising rates. Yesterday, the Fed raised its benchmark interest rate by 0.25 percentage points. The majority of US officials are now expecting one more rate hike to come. But the juicy insights came…
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Fund Managers Say This is The Biggest Market Risk
No, it’s not a bank panic. It’s what comes after… Between Mar. 10-16, Bank of America asked 212 fund managers what they thought was the biggest market risk (BBG). The results: 31% say a credit crunch is the biggest market threat. 25% say inflation is the biggest threat. A credit crunch is a scenario where…
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Worried About Another Bank Run? Here’s What US Officials Are Doing About It
Refresher: FDIC insurance protects up to $250K in each eligible bank account. It applies to individuals with $5 in their bank account and even businesses with hundreds of millions. In the US, there are over $19T in bank deposits — with over $9.2T uninsured at the end of 2022. Uninsured deposits made up 93.8% of…
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Commercial Real Estate is the Next Domino At Risk of Falling
Another area of the market is feeling the stress. This time, it’s the $5.6T+ in commercial real estate loans held by banks. But one area of CRE is feeling even more pain: offices. Their values have been hit hard by: Rising interest rates — which sent interest payments up and property values down. Remote work…
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Is Warren Buffett About to Save the Banking Sector?
Be “fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.” Do you even invest if you don’t know this quote? The investor who famously said it is back in the spotlight. Warren Buffett is known for saving banks in their time of need: An investment from Buffett is a sign of confidence, and…
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