Andy Rachleff, the CEO of Wealthfront argues that managed real estate funds perform poorly compared to low cost ETFs like Vanguard's REIT Index Fund; Fundrise's CEO Benjamin Miller responded in a blog post, writing "Less competitive, inefficient markets mean an investor can generally buy comparable assets at lower prices than efficient markets. With Shiller price-to-earnings (PE) ratios at all-time historic highs only seen in 1929 and 2001, more than ever investors need to find ways to invest at a reasonable cost basis."; Miller also argues that long term investors are paying a premium for the liquidity that ETFs offer, something that these investors don't need. Source
CODIX examines reasons why organizations withhold plans for replacing their IT solutions, why they must replace, and when it is the right time to change in their white paper. Source
According to UK research firm Autonomous NEXT there are now 68 crypto hedge funds which is a significant jump since the start of the year; while calling themselves hedge funds many of these new entities are not structured like a typical hedge fund and they don't have institutional backing; as the interest in cryptocurrencies grows, the market will continue seeing new entrants trying to capitalize on the rising value. Source.
ZhongAn starts trading tomorrow and raised $1.5bn last week, valuing the group at up to $10bn; the IPO has begun pushing insurtech into the mainstream as the company has seen growing interest across the world; the use of AI & big data have been driving forces behind the company and a main reason for investor interest; this might help to give momentum to other insurtech firms like Lemonade and Oscar. Source.
Deloitte is the newest name to come under cyber attack where hackers accessed data on an email platform; the accounting firm said the cyber breach had affected “only very few clients” and that “no disruption had occurred to client businesses"; they notified government authorities of the hack when it occurred and have put a team together to figure out what happened. Source.
Considered part of the 'Big Four' banks in China, the China Construction Bank (CCB) is looking to launch a banking and insurance blockchain product; their hoping to use their new bancassurance product in Q3 to sell third-party insurance products on the distributed ledger as CoinDesk reports; they are using the IBM blockchain and have been testing the products for months. Source.
WSJ published a story on China’s consumer credit rating ecosystem: the fact that China doesn’t have a widely accepted system to gauge individual’s creditworthiness leads technology giants (Ant Financial, Tencent among others) to developing their own credit-rating systems, but none of these projects has emerged as a single nationwide standard either yet; problems with generating credit scores in the private sector include data accuracy and privacy; the story says the lack of a single accepted standard is holding back the growth of borrowing among rising middle class in China. Source
deBanked reports that Wold Business Lenders (WBL) has purchased several assets from Bizfi including the brand, marketplace, the Next Level Funding renewal book and other pieces of the company; WBL, a small business lender will lend on the platform; Stephen Sheinbaum, founder of Biz joined WBL as a managing director in July; several other Bizfi staff have joined WBL. Source
Bloomberg discusses the inner workings of SoftBank’s fund which includes Apple and Saudi Arabia; many former Deutsche Bank AG traders work at the firm; it has invested in a broad range of companies and is currently the world’s largest private equity fund. Source