About Financial Needs

 

The Fintech Revolution

Millennials are entering the job market and by 2025 will make up 75% of it.

I really respect Israeli ingenuity and business style.

“The fintech revolution has begun,” says Dovi Frances, founding partner of the fintech-focused venture capital fund Group 11.

What to watch ?

Lemonade - fintech company. Insure stuff in seconds. No paperwork, everything is done via AI bot. US and Germany markets only.

Next Insurance - business insurance online.

SoFi.com - personal insurance.

N26 - online bank.

Tipalti.com - account payable solution.

''The unbundling of banks''

TripActions.com - business travel reinvented.

Lili.com - a bank. US only.

Chime - a bank.

Cost of living - Croatia vs. Germany - today

Bank runs started in Europe ?

Siemens has no faith in European banks anymore. Siemens Bank roll on.

In a shocking representation of just how bad things are in Europe, the FT reports that major European industrial concern Siemens, pulled €500 million form a large French bank, which is not BNP and leaves just [SocGen|Credit Agricole] and deposited the money straight to the ECB.

What is it if it's not bank run ?

The implications of this are quite stunning, as it means that even European companies now refuse to work directly with their own banks, and somehow the ECB has become a direct lender/cash holder of only resort to private non-financial institutions!

As Bloomberg reports further on the FT story, in total, Siemens has deposited between 4 billion euros and 6 billion euros, mostly through one-week deposits, with the ECB, FT says, cites the person. It isn’t clear from which bank Siemens withdrew its deposits, per the FT... but it is hardly difficult to figure out.

BNP Paribas isn’t the bank involved, FT reports, cites unidentified person familiar with the bank. This story should be having far more impact on the EURUSD than any rumors about Greece lying it will fire all of its public workers only to make sure Eurobanks can survive one more day.

Uncharted Waters For Casino Capitalism

Financial english idiom. The comin of the new dark age

Tommorow, the global stock market will have to ''price in'' following facts and new realities:

- S & P's downgrade of USA top-notch credit rating

- European soverign debt crisis - Italy and Spain bonds

- First signs of global economic slowdown, possible signs of the new recession

- the dollar is, de facto, no longer reserve currency

- China becomes officially the mightiest global superpower

- The reality of the full multi-polar geopolitical order

If you're in uncharted waters, you are in a situation that is unfamiliar to you, that you have no experience of and don't know what might happen. ('Unchartered waters' is an incorrect form that is a common mistake.)

Source: english dictionary

The Fall Of Capitalism

Print more money ! Fast !


Another global stock market sell-off. The biggest daily drop of major indexes since February 2009.

Socialism failed, and now capitalism is going bankrupt.

What will be ''third way'' ? Next 20-30 years will decide.

Euro - Game Over !

Deutche Mark - Welcome !

Don't tell me it wasn't predictable ?
European Monetary Union is dead as ''dead chicken ''.

It is still not clear will there be another collosal financial collapse aka Lehman-style ( only worse ).


Anyhow, time is running out for all those Bruxelles's fuckers and politicians. Party is over.

How to play markets in the coming months ?

- buy dollar/ sell Euro
- buy German Bunds
- sell Dax Index
- sell Swiss Franc
- sell Belgium share index
- buy European travel companies
- sell US banks

Yes, that's rock n' roll.

Ultra Cheap Property In Florida

Property slump

Location: Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA.
This property sold for $145,000 in 2006 and is now priced at $26,900.

CashBase Tracks Money

Web & iPhone app for simple cash flow tracking

Build out of frustration with available personal finance software , CashBase was made by Filip Chereches-Tosa and Radu Lucaciu from Romania with attention to detail and a bit of Web design philosophy preached by the folks at 37Signals .

It is indeeed very clean and simple Web 2.0 app for tracking your monthly earnings and expenses.
The principle is money-in / money-out, so it gives you clean picture about the cash flow.

Even the colors are right. Invitation button for sign up is blue ( blue's the color of finances ), earning side is green and spending side is red.

Sign up process is fast. !5 seconds later you're good to go.
Left side is for earnings, right side is for expenses.

The central point of the app is ''transaction'', whether adding or subtracting amounts.
It is possible to create many wallets or accounts and track cash flow for each account.
Each transaction tags with certain date or the range of dates so you can use analytics feature from the right menu and see the stat / graphical presentation of the cash flow.

More so, app is promising to be able to predict your cash flow in the future based on the history.

Mobile component is there as well. iPhone app is in the AppStore and allways in synch with Web version.

One important aspect of every money app is data privacy. CashBase does state full support for secure connection and data verified by GlobeSSl. The credibility could be easy lost with any mishandling of sensitive private data, so this is critical promise .

CashBase is nice little app, but it is still work in progress and it can be improved with more features or add-ons not compromising simplicity.

It left me with desire to have this few wishes: Terms of service ( my law opsession ) still not up, easier way for making new wallet/account ( not geeky syntax like @newAccount, deposit ) , stats menues should be more visible ( they're too grey ) , ability to calibrate your account for losses from the start, summary of all accounts/wallets, ability to add spending category/tag/label, different currencies etc.

I can easily imagine that this app could be one day with enhanced functionality offered on the market- premium accounts.
The base is certainly there.

The Day Dollar Died

It's not anymore question of ''if'', but ''when''.

Nobody knows exact timing. Nobody knows exact consequences. Everyone who says he's smart enough to know about this, is a liar.

Why I care about all of this ? Well, the effect of this unfortunate event in USA will be felt all around the World. Immediatly. Remember October 2008 ?

This time will be worse. Here's a movie about one of those scenarios :



Most Americans are naive enough to believe that because the U.S. has survived for so long with such a huge national debt and continuous budget deficits, the country will be able to continue down this path forever without any consequences because after all, this is America we are talking about.

The truth is, US national debt has grown by 70.7% over the past five years, compared to 41.8% during the previous five years, and 14.3% during the five years before that.

Meanwhile, US GDP has grown by 17.9% over the past five years, compared to 27.5% during the previous five years, and 32.9% during the five years before that.

Americans gone from their GDP growing more than twice as fast as their debt, to debt growing at nearly quadruple the speed of US GDP.

A train wreck is getting ready to happen and this train wreck is literally unstoppable.

Second Leg Of A Global Bankruptcy

As much as Euro project is dead, there are another cracks in the global financial meltdown that started in 3rd quarter of 2008.

Bloomberg, the leading financial news provider, gets it right and in a plain language:

There will be a lot of grand rhetoric about the importance of the European project. Stern condemnations of the speculators will ring out across the continent.

Don’t listen to a word of it. The euro has turned into a bankruptcy machine. Once the markets have finished with Ireland, they will simply move on to Portugal and Spain, and after that to Italy and France.

There is a domino effect at work, and, with each rescue, the fault lines within the euro grow wider and wider. This process isn’t going to stop until the euro is taken apart.

Dear readers, I'll have to say this - Frankfurt now leads the main role in the finances and Germany got deserved satisfaction that Frankfurt was right from the start. In that name, I'll eat Frankfurt wurst , cheers !

Wikinvest - Finance Resource 2010

Portfolio tracker and wiki for finances

They claim the site is much more helpful for tracking your investments and portfolio then standard sites on the market like Yahoo Finance, CNBC etc.
Apparently, almost $ 100 million of people's portfolio's is already in.

25 Largest Hedge Fund Managers (2010)

Below is a list of the largest hedge funds managers in the world as of Q1 2010 including website and AUM:


Hedge Fund Location AUM Website
1. JP Morgan Asset Management New York, NY $53.5B www.jpmorgan.com
2. Bridgewater Associates Westport, CT $43.6B www.bwater.com
3. Paulson & Co. New York, NY $32B
4. Brevan Howard Asset Management London, UK $27.0B www.brevanhoward.com
5. Soros Fund Management New York, NY $27.0B
6. Man Group London, UK $25.3B www.mangroupplc.com
7. Och-Ziff Capital Management New York, NY $23.1B www.ozcap.com
8. D.E. Shaw Group New York, NY $23.0B www.deshaw.com
9. BlackRock New York, NY $21.0B www.blackrock.com
10. Farallon Capital Management San Francisco, CA $20.7B www.faralloncapital.com
11. Baupost Group Boston, MA $20.0B www.baupost.com
12. King Street Capital New York, NY $19.0B
13. Goldman Sachs Asset Management New York, NY $17.8B www.goldmansachs.com
14. Canyon Partners Los Angeles, CA $17.6B www.canyonpartners.com
15. BlueCrest Capital Management London, UK $17.3B www.bluecrestcapital.com
16. Elliot Management New York, NY $16.2B www.elliottmgmt.com
17. Landsowne Partners London, UK $15.0B www.lansdownepartners.com
18. Renaissance Technologies East Setauket, NY $15.2B www.rentec.com
19. Fortress Investment New York, NY $13.8B www.fortressinv.com
20. Eton Park Capital Management New York, NY $13.0B
21. Viking Global Investors Greenwich, CT $12.4B
22. Moore Capital Management New York, NY $12.4B
23. SAC Capital Partners Stamford, Ct $12.0B www.sac.com
24. GLG Partners London, UK $11.5B www.glgpartners.com
25. York Capital Management New York, NY $11.1B www.yorkcapital.com

Source: HedgeLists.com, Pensions and Investments

Crisis Of Credit - Visualised

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

ZEC FINANCIAL

2 days late




Zec Financial is up and running ;)
Catch me if you can ! :)))

17 August 1976, Columbus (NE) Telegram, pg. 19, col. 3:
“Buy when blood runs in the streets,” said Mark Nobel, quoting baron Rothschild.

Dow Jones's stroke

If this isn't stroke, then what is it ?
Dow Jones history chart

Collapse and ruins

When you see the ruins, there will be market bottom. Buy a gun

It's the end of the World, after all...so they say. At least, some rules are changing but Tulip mania will come sooner or later again :))

In case you haven't read media lately and my last blog article, I have put up few follow-up links that describe the World and its current mindset/geist.
Let's repost these stories :

US retirement accounts have lost 2 trillion
So far and US only...

Iceland - the first souverign nation facing bankruptcy after global financial crisis
National state emergency

Pakistan's the second...after Iceland

Financial manager in LA killed his family
Money worries start to blow someone's mind and tragedy unfolds

Insolvency crisis among UK retailers in 2009 ?
Not aware about the troubles ahead, yet...

Hong Kong bank customers want their money back from banks
At any cost, riots looming...

Brazil and Argentina try trading without dollars
Greeenback not needed as before...

South Africa starts killer disease
Spreads like a plague

Stolen opium for those unhappy in the future
Happy pill for the masses

Russia's bull welcomes Cold War 2
Red Army marching...


Great Britain , de facto, makes agression against Iceland
Give us those geo-thermal wells or we will...

Funny ''flash'' Gordon acting King Arthur
Me, me, saving the World...

Sheriff's returning to the town
Too late, bankers got papers...

Bank robberry of the century

Hands up, this is robberry

Off topic again, but I have to save an article for the future . Absolutely right diagnosis set up by Nouriel Roubini about global crunch ( contagion ) just upon the World.

Roubini: Not bail-out, but crap

So, what do you think , how many years in jail will Wall Street guys get for this bank robberry ? How many trials will be there for this criminal and irresponsible behaviour ?
Nada.

Nobody in the media reports about the protests ( YouTube video ) going on in the lower Manhattan ( Wall St. ), not business as usual down there.

Roubini's main conclusion is this:

1. The plan is inefficient (ie, it doesn't discriminate between who ought to be saved or not, and in fact rewards those who created dud assets)

2. It runs counter to the best models of how to deal with this sort of problem

3. It does not punish current shareholders or management


Follow up articles to note:

US retirement accounts have lost 2 trillion
So far and US only...

Iceland - the first souverign nation facing bankruptcy after global financial crisis
National state emergency

Pakistan's the second...after Iceland

Financial manager in LA killed his family
Money worries start to blow someone's mind and tragedy unfolds

Insolvency crisis among UK retailers in 2009 ?
Not aware about the troubles ahead, yet...

Hong Kong bank customers want their money back from banks
At any cost, riots looming...

Brazil and Argentina try trading without dollars
Greeenback not needed as before...

South Africa starts killer disease
Spreads like a plague

Stolen opium for those unhappy in the future
Happy pill for the masses

Russia's bull welcomes Cold War 2

Red Army marching...

Soros: The worst market crisis in 60 years

Not just an usual boom and bust cycle. Dollar fall off the race.

George Soros isn't writing a blog but he writes a column for the London's Financial Times. His last column is diagnosis for the financial crisis just upon the World.
More or less, it's all what more couragous analysts and finance expert do talk for years. Now, the mess is huge. I would need to buy the book ''The Long emergency'' by James Howard Kunstler ( who talks more about oil crisis, not financial crisis ) and perhaps his new book '' World made by hand''. Still, there's is conclusion in the Soros article with a bit of relief when he says:

Although a recession in the developed world is now more or less inevitable, China, India and some of the oil-producing countries are in a very strong countertrend. So, the current financial crisis is less likely to cause a global recession than a radical realignment of the global economy, with a relative decline of the US and the rise of China and other countries in the developing world.