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Investing

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Investing[1] refers to the act of committing money or capital to an endeavor (a business, project, real estate, etc.) with the expectation of obtaining additional income or profit. Investing means putting your money to work for you. Growing up, most of us were taught that you can earn an income only by getting a job and working. And that's exactly what most of us do. There's one big problem with this: if you want more money, you have to work more hours. However, there is a limit to how many hours a day we can work, not to mention the fact that having a bunch of money is no fun if we don't have the leisure time to enjoy it Investing allows an individual to save for their future whether it be for retirement or education. The term investment is usually used when referring to a long-term outlook. This is the opposite of trading or speculation, which are short-term practices involving a much higher degree of risk. Investing can take part in many forms and play different functions within an investor's life. A person can invest in almost anything. Common investments include investing in the stock market, bonds, mutual funds, savings accounts, and even currency. Platforms like E-trade, Robinhood, and Acorns simplify the investing process.

Investments are often made indirectly through intermediaries, such as banks, brokers, pension funds, and insurance companies [2]. These institutions may pool money received from a large number of individuals into funds such as investment trusts to make large-scale investments. Each individual investor then has an indirect or direct claim on the assets purchased, subject to charges levied by the intermediary, which may be large and varied. Investment usually involves diversification of assets in order to avoid unnecessary and unproductive risk.[3]

Finance

Industry

The finance industry consists of a wide range of careers and fields. A financial services firm can be investment banks, financial advisory firms, insurance companies, asset management firms, hedge funds, venture capital funds, and much more. The most basic aspect of the work financial services companies do is invest capital. They channel money from savers and pass it onto borrowers. Individuals planning for retirement might go to a financial advisory or asset management firm to grow their money in the long-term. These firms will act as intermediaries and provide funds to those looking for money and are willing to pay interest on the risk the firm is accepting by loaning to those individuals. Since the presence of financial services firms is vital to the economy of not just a country, but the world as a whole, there are many regulations that come along with being a financial services institution or firm. The government oversees many of the services provided by these companies. Their involvement can range from licensing to regulations. The reason the government has to have oversight over the financial sector is that citizens entrust their money into these firms. These citizens need some sort of guarantee that there is someone to keep their money holders in check and prevent themselves from being cheated out of their money. An example would be a purchaser of life insurance ensuring that the insurance company they belong to is still around after they are gone. They want the insurance companies to be able to pay forward to the surviving beneficiaries of the insurance holder. [4]

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Investment Banking

Investment banking is the process of helping corporations or companies raise capital either through debt or equity in order to grow their businesses. These companies can then use this capital for their own specific needs, such as reinvesting it back into their own company or trying to either merge or acquire another company. Investment banks also advise corporations on mergers, acquisitions, restructurings, and other major corporate actions. Investment banks perform advisory and securities underwriting in which they manage the risk by purchasing the securities from the issuer and selling them off to investors. The core activities in an investment bank are corporate finance, sales & trading, equity research, and asset management. Corporate finance is typically broken into product groups and coverage groups. New media has impacted the overall investment banking industry in many ways. For example, Twitter is one way to build relationships, update your clients, speak to your audience directly, share information, and drive traffic to your website. Also, new media allows corporations to set up corporate blogs as a method of communicating with its audience. Through a corporate blog, a company can share tips and information, educate and build advocacy, and monitor issues related to their performance or operations.

High Frequency Trading

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High-Frequency Trading (HFT) refers to the buying/selling, and transaction of financial assets/securities between market participants at the extremely short timeframe. Because transactions are taking place at lightning speed, human traders are prone to error due to the sheer volume and complexity. HFT transactions are usually done through an exchange such as NYSE, and only investment management firms who have extensive capital and infrastructure can carry out such operations. For today’s market activities, it is estimated that HFT made up of over 80% of the total NYSE transaction volume. Furthermore, it is no easy task to become part of a High-Frequency Trading firm, as many of these firms require advanced-degree such as Ph.D. in computer science, statistics, and mathematics. High-frequency trading firms are willing to pay large sums of money to install their servers near the stock exchanges because they will receive information quicker than anyone else. This effectively has changed the market as these firms are able to trade on market changes quicker than anyone else. At the same time, these firms are able to increase their volumes of transactions, which has led to low commission fees. Today, many firms have opted for no fee transactions at all, such as Robinhood, Mint, Cash App, etc., which all occurs because of high-frequency trading. This is a benefit for individual investors, who largely have been put on a lower scale of importance compared to global equity firms.

Quantitative Trading In the aftermath of the dot-com bubble, financial markets experienced a vast increase in technologies. Quantitative trading can be defined as trading strategies based on quantitative analysis, which rely on mathematical computations to identify trading opportunities. Price and volume are two of the more common data inputs used in quantitative analysis as the main inputs to mathematical models. While quantitative trading has been around since the 1970s, it was not until the 2000s where it truly took shape and ultimately took over the market, whether for better or for worse. Traditionally, the stock market included brokers and traders that facilitated trades for individuals. Those times are long gone now, as brokers are still around but not like it used to be. People can now execute trades on applications such as E-Trade, TD Ameritrade, and many other financial institutions. This has added a competitive advantage for those who conduct quantitative and high-frequency trading, because when consumers place a trade, quants will sell their share of a stock at a higher price to the person purchasing a stock automatically. On the flip side, quant trading has led to improvements for consumers looking to invest their money beyond the traditional money market manager structure. Thus, quantitative trading has benefits and disadvantages both for firms and consumers, but ultimately it has changed the world of investing for the better.

Financial institutions have also seen profit increases due to robo advising, which is a subset of quantitative trading. With no need to employ human traders to the extent of earlier decades, robo advisors automatically invest in funds and rebalance portfolios for people for a small percentage fee of the portfolio. This benefits the consumer and firm because consumers get lower fees, compared if a human were to manage the portfolio and companies receive passive revenue. It is tedious work to rebalance a portfolio every quarter, but quant trading has made it possible to do so automatically. Robo-advising is rising faster than any other service in finance and for good reason. Robo-advising is not stock picking or predicting, but rather based on mathematical models that make sure based on variables and the market return the consumer is looking for. It has created a more precise and accurate investing platform that consumers have enjoyed. Robo-firms have built in quant trading into their system, including equal-weighted modeling, simulation modeling Monte Carlo simulation, and optimization modeling mean variant. These investments via robo-firms have shown a significant return and Sharpe ratio of portfolios, many times beating the S & P 500 index.

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There are many outspoken critics to quantitative trading.Critics believe that quantitative trading has created an imbalanced market that is prone to volatility. There seems to be a divide between traditional traders and quants, in terms of methodology in trading. Stanley Druckenmiller, a legendary hedge fund manager said, “These ‘algos’ have taken all the rhythm out of the market, and have become extremely confusing to me”. For traditional traders, this shift in ideology in trading has been difficult to keep up with. The days of humans conducting market-making in the trading pits on the NYSE are now done by high-frequency data models. It is estimated that quant strategies manage at least $1.5 trillion dollars according to Morgan Stanley. Moreover, JP Morgan estimates that only 10% of U.S. equity trading is still done by traditional traders and investors. Critics cite two specific examples of how market-making at the hands of quant trading has led the market in becoming more fragile. On May 6th, 2010 around 2:30 PM, the stock market plunged lower for no apparent reason. 36 minutes later the S & P 500 crashed by more than 8%, but rebounded to get even, all before the 4 PM deadline of trading. This was known as the “flash crash”, but it pointed to the rise of high-frequency and algorithmic trading firms, who were manipulating the market. Firms who were operating quant trading suddenly saw that they were outperforming traditional investment banks and hedge funds, which put a huge sense of worry over the market.

The second example that critics point to for how quantitative trading has ruined the markets occurred in August of 2015. Similar to that day on May 6th, 2010, markets trended down, but this time quant strategies were identified as the primary culprits. After that 2010 event, officials brought back circuit-breakers to halt volatility, which we saw quite a few times during the Coronavirus market meltdown. In August of 2015, these circuit-breakers were put into effect as the S & P 500 crashed on opening. As expected, many investors and high-profile market personalities, such as Jim Cramer blamed quantitative trading due to its ability to automatically adjust its market exposure. This was cited as a reason for the 2015 crash. However, defenders of quantitative trading cite that these models are no different than risk parity strategies that have been on-going for decades. Risk parity are managed volatility products that are sold by insurance companies. There are more than a $1 trillion invested throughout the market including these funds. Arguably the greatest hedge-fund manager of all time, Ray Dalio created this strategy in the 1990s. The theory behind risk parity is that investing in a broad and diversified portfolio of stocks, bonds, and other assets coupled with volatility would create better returns than traditional portfolios over time. Given that bonds are less volatile than equities, by leveraging investments to account for risk-adjust allocation, profits could be made in numbers. As volatility goes up, risk parity funds reduce their exposure. Nonetheless, risk parity funds vary in their approach and move slower than other financial products. These funds are based on up and down momentum in the market and use volatility metrics to scale their exposure. As a result when markets are even they buy and when turbulence increases they sell. Critics are not opposed to risk parity in theory as it has been a successful strategy over time, but when it leaves funds vulnerable to reversals, as indicative in 2010 and 2015, it can create even more turbulence by selling when markets are already trending downwards. Leon Cooperman, founder of Omega Advisors told CNBC in 2018, “I think your next guest ought to be somebody from the SEC to explain why they have sat back calmly, quietly, without saying anything and allowing these algorithmic, trend-following models to wreak havoc with what has, up to now, been the best capital market in the world”. Essentially, critics like Leon have cited that quantitative trading has created a “wild-wild west market environment”. [5] [6] [7]

Social Media

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Professionals in the financial sector are able to use social media to their benefit. Research shows that 60% of professional service buyers look through social media for suppliers. In the 21st century, if a firm cannot be found on social media, individuals will rather go to those who can be. There are a few ways social media is beneficial to professionals within financial services and to the employees within it. Social media is a free resource that can be used in a wide variety of ways at the firm’s discretion. LinkedIn and Twitter are a couple of social media outlets that firms can access. Firms can provide updates on their company and performance through these mediums just through a simple post. The posts can contain links and information key to the firm’s success, and many loyal clients and customers of the firm can “follow” the firm to reach this information. The increased visibility allows the firm to benefit from “expertise-based referrals” instead of the prior client relationship. Only about 5.5% of new clients come from knowing the professional. 48.1% comes from “expertise-based referrals.” By expertise-based referrals, it means that the clients see the positive performance of the company through social media, and they use this performance as the basis for deals.

Social media is also a place where employees can help showcase the personality and culture of the firm they are a part of. This allows personal interaction between potential clients and employees of the firm. Social media also builds trust from clients, towards the firm. If a company responds to its followers on Twitter, it shows the company values its customers and this builds trust that could potentially be an asset to the company in the long run. With social media, outlets the firms can track their reputation based on search trends and other data analytics provided by the sites. This was, the company can develop strategies based on their findings.

Linkedin

Linked In

Professionals in the financial services industry use LinkedIn as a professional intermediary to help them stay connected. Within financial services, LinkedIn is a key resource for professionals to be able to expand their horizons by meeting new people. In order to grow within the financial services industry, rather than having a knowledgeable background, individuals have to know powerful and influential people. It’s a competitive industry and knowing the right top managers can get lower-level employees the right raises and the right promotions. Students who are job-seekers also rely on LinkedIn for job postings by companies within a respective industry. In our case, it’s the financial services industry. Recruiters also screen applicants throughout LinkedIn to fill in positions for their firm. HR Recruiters are given the task to source the firm the most talented and capable employees available. These recruiters contact potential candidates through LinkedIn’s messaging client and set up phone calls and interviews for the best of the best. While students recruit their junior year, they use LinkedIn as a central location to keep all the individuals in their network in a location where they can keep track of them. For job seekers, the website has a filtering proxy that allows them to filter out industries and filter in experience level and job functions.[8]

Another useful feature of LinkedIn is to see who is in your network and how well connected you are with the prospective connection, for example, did you go to the same college as this person? Or did you have a mutual connection like a professional association? LinkedIn's power lies in its ability to connect the scattering dots and link all dots together to make a meaningful picture. LinkedIn's latest learning features also allow the user to upgrade their existing skills and knowledge related to their experiences. By collecting your personal data, LinkedIn then uses this information to make personalized learning materials for its users and track the learning progress. [9]

AngelList

Angel List

In Silicon Valley, there are many people who work in the startup industry and they all know or know of each other. In NYC, there are many VCs who want to get into the startup industry but aren't sure how. AngelList is a website where startup companies can post about their startups and what they are trying to achieve. From there, people can search through this list and find startup companies they may be interested in investing in. It is a good way for investors and startups to connect and start a future together. Angel List also serves as a platform for individuals who seek jobs in the startup industry. A lot of StartUps post job offerings on Angel List. Although the network may not be as large as other job platforms, Angel List allows for specializations in start-up culture companies. Most jobs are looking for a dynamic employee that can be used in a multi-faceted way. Most jobs revolve around technology and having a background in software engineering. Angel List is a great place for new graduates to explore options outside of corporate America. Overall, AngelList is a versatile platform that combines new media with start ups. This platform allows them to connect with the people they need to reach the next step in their companies.

Twitter

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Everyone wants to get a head start on the markets and social media have been one of the main components of the mix. Among social networking platforms, Twitter stands out as a source of news, updates, and tips that can inform strategic trading decisions. One of the most notable feeds is @fxhedge. This feed communicates news almost instantly on Twitter, notifying retail investors of macro occurrences. Pages such as these are able to relay news on a constant basis much faster than the typical news outlets. New media users are able to receive news faster than the typical old age investors who rely on specific certified news outlets. As a trader, you want to stay up to date on news and potentially even know the news before others do. For instance, the News of The World scandal and the Costa Concordia disaster came up on Twitter before any other platform in the world. [10] This goes to prove that individuals with a new media background have an advantage over those who do not. [11]

Online Investor Communities

Online Investor Communities are a new phenomenon within the world of finance and are notable for engaging in social trading. Social trading is when individual investors rely on user-submitted commentary to make financial decisions. [12] Information flow, cooperative trading, and transparency are three of the biggest benefits of joining online investor communities.

Information flow refers to the free flowing of information and ideas between investors of the network. Cooperative trading is when two or more traders work together on trading teams by strategically trading together, pooling funds or dividing research material. The transparency that arises from social trading may be perhaps the largest benefit of the communities. Platforms such as eToro reveal trader's performance stats, open and past positions and market sentiment.

StockTwits

StockTwits

StockTwits is a financial social network for the financial and investing communities. The company was founded in 2008 by long-time investor Howard Lindzon. To use the platform, a user needs to go to StockTwits.com or download the app on the Apple App Store or the Google Play store for Android devices. StockTwits created the $ ticker sign to enable and organize feeds of information around stocks and markets across the web and social media. These feeds provide new forms of insights, ideas, and information that are used by professional and amateur investors. [13]

The core feature of the platform is a non-stop stream of 140 character messages about stocks (like Twitter), and on top of it, a series of analytic and sentiment screens that help investors and traders understand the move of the market. Through the service, investors and others who interested in stocks and markets can easily follow individual stocks, specific contributors, as well as view the StockTwits stream across numerous of financial sites that integrate their stream including Yahoo! Finance, CNNMoney, Reuters, TheStreet.com, Bing.com and The Globe and Mail.

The StockTwits platform is also integrated with major other social platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Like with Twitter, it is possible to follow other users and to be followed by others too, but what is very useful for traders and investors is to follow the message streams of specific stocks. If a user selects to follow the feed of $AMEX for example, all messages posted by the whole community about American Express will be shown on his private feed. [14]

The fintech site also provides signals, which allows measuring the market sentiment. In this section, there is a "heat map" that shows all stocks mentioned on the platform on one graph organized by message volume and % price variation. The box size indicates the message volume for that stock and the color and the brightness indicate the direction and % variation. [15]

eToro

eToro

eToro was founded in 2006 by Yoni Assia as an online retail brokerage but expanded in 2010 to become a social investment platform. It named this new platform "OpenBook" and introduced a feature called CopyTrade that enables investors to view, follow and copy the network's top traders automatically. eToro claims that out of the 124 million trades that have been copied since the launch of eToro OpenBook, 80% of them have been profitable. [16]

eToro also enables users to connect with other traders, discuss strategies and adjust their portfolios to their choosing. eToro encourages highly successful and profitable traders to share their insights and help other traders improve their skills by awarding top performing investors a percentage of their Assets under Management as a second income stream. [17]

As of December 2016, eToro has just over 5 million registered users, utilizing the platform through its website as well as a mobile app on both iOS and Android operating systems.

SumZero

SumZero

SumZero is another reputable online investment community, however, its member base of 50,000 individuals is significantly smaller than that of eToro and StockTwits. The low membership count is explained by the fact that SumZero caters only to professional investors of Wall Street, known as the buy side. These professionals have to apply to join the investment community and must be on the research team at a hedge fund, mutual fund, private equity fund or investment banking proprietary trading desk. [18] It is said that roughly 75% of SumZero membership applications are rejected. [19]

Due to the high-profile members of the online community of SumZero, the platform has become a repository for research of buy-side analysts and has even been a place where institutional investors could find trail-blazing or lesser-known fund managers and hire them based on their reports and analysis. This has been growing the website more into a social network for matching investors with fund managers.

Joshua Young is the most recent example of SumZero's importance in the financial world. In the summer of 2015 he had started his first hedge fund and within 11 months, he received a $20 million cash infusion. This was given to him by a university endowment, the CIO of which found Young's reports and fund strategy on SumZero. [20]

Seeking Alpha

Seeking Alpha

Seeking Alpha is a crowd-sourcing, user-generating content website that allows users to discuss assorted topics of the financial market. Steps to join Seeking Alpha is easy: you would need to create a username and password with a working email address. David Jackson, the company’s founder, created the website in 2004 as he realized that online investors are more knowledgeable about the company’s financial history/performance than those analysts that are covering these companies.

Accordingly, investment ideas from retail investors are less biased than analyst reports, as retail investors are not been paid for their research unless the writer stated that he/she has received compensation for the writing. The website encourages discussion/analysis on a wide range of industries and asset classes, for example, stocks, Exchange-Traded-Funds, mutual fund, currency analysis, economics, and earnings reports. A diverse user profile including hedge fund managers, analysts, and traders/investors, Seeking Alpha’s users can hear opinions from various people and understand the general sentiment about a company/stock of interest.

Although not widely accepted by the investment community as a method for gathering information and conducting research, Seeking Alpha believes that crowdsourcing information has deeper insights about various equity and markets, as many of the website’s contributors are industry professionals with extensive experience.

Seeking Alpha’s business model is based on two components: subscriptions to its Seeking Alpha PRO and advertisement. With a diverse user profile of over 4 million, Seeking Alpha can use its platform for companies to market their products and services to reach out to the audience. [21]

Risk

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Risk is one of the most important factors to figure out when you are choosing your investments. Risk plays a large role and is often overlooked. Risk[22] is the chance that an investment's actual return will be different than expected. Often, investments that have a higher risk yield higher returns and investments that have lower risk are said to yield smaller returns. Investments such as government bonds, CD's, savings account are low-risk investments that are safe but offer a small return. Large and small scale stocks, mutual funds, real estate investments are riskier but they generate a higher return. An investor doesn't always generate a return and can lose their investment if the stock goes down. There are many types of market risks investors must care of [23]:

  • Interest Rate Risk - Interest rate risk is the possibility that a fixed-rate debt instrument will decline in value as a result of a rise in interest rates. Whenever investors buy securities that offer a fixed rate of return, they are exposing themselves to interest rate risk. This is true for bonds and also for preferred stocks.
  • Credit Risk - This refers to the possibility that a particular bond issuer will not be able to make expected interest rate payments and/or principal repayment. Typically, the higher the credit risk, the higher the interest rate on the bond.
  • Business Risk - the business risk is also known as unsystematic risk and refers to the risk associated with a specific issuer of a security. Business risk refers to the possibility that the issuer of a stock or a bond may go bankrupt or be unable to pay the interest or principal in the case of bonds. A common way to avoid unsystematic risk is to diversify - that is, to buy mutual funds, which hold the securities of many different companies.
  • Liquidity Risk - Liquidity risk refers to the possibility that an investor may not be able to buy or sell an investment as and when desired or in sufficient quantities because opportunities are limited. An example of liquidity risk is selling real estate. In most cases, it will be difficult to sell a property at any given moment should the need arise, unlike government securities or blue-chip stocks.
  • Country Risk - This refers to the risk associated with the country, and its ability to fulfill all financial commitments. An example of country risk was the Greece debt crisis that occurred in 2015. [24]

Types of Investments

There are many different ways you can go about making an investment. This includes putting money into stocks, bonds, mutual funds, currency or real estate, or even starting your own business. Sometimes people refer to these options as "investment vehicles," which is just another way of saying "a way to invest." Each of these vehicles has positives and negatives.

Stocks

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Stocks are an instrument of equity that allows the investor to own a share of the company. Owning shares of a particular company allows participation in the shareholders meeting as well as receiving any profits allocated to shareholders, called dividends. These dividends are considered income, while the general increase or decrease in the stock's price is called capital gains and losses. Compared to bonds, stocks generally offer a higher return mainly due to the risk the investors face. Stocks are generally more volatile and may dramatically increase or decrease in a single day. Most of the time stocks follow the reaction of current news, including the release of earnings and other company meetings. [25]

Dividends are not mandated for the companies to give and may be given in one quarter and not the next. Stocks are traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Normally trading hours begin at 9:30AM and ends at 4PM Monday through Friday, excluding holidays. In order to buy and sell stocks, you must have a brokerage account. Some common brokerage companies include TD Ameritrade, Etrade, and Robinhood.

Bonds

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Bonds are debt instruments mainly provided to raise capital for the company. Unlike stocks where the investor gains a piece of the company invested in, bonds allow the investor to lend money in return for interest. These institutions are not limited only to companies, but may also be issued by the federal government, government agencies, and state governments as well. Generally speaking, bonds offer low risk to none at all. For example, the U.S. Treasury Bond, issued by the federal government, is the basis for a risk-free asset. All things considered, there is no risk in investing in this particular bond which equates to very low returns. The way most bonds work is the distribution of income throughout the term and its par value at maturity. Bonds usually have a par value of $1000; this means at a 5% coupon rate paying investors semi-annually, the investor will receive $25 every six months and receive the $1000 back at the end of the term.[26]

Mutual Funds

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A Mutual Fund is a pooled portfolio consisting of stocks, bonds, and other securities. These funds are a simple way of investing for an investor since the fund is managed by professionals. Most, if not all funds have a distinct portfolio such as large-cap, mid-cap, government bonds, agency bonds, and so on. The professionals managing the portfolio have an end goal and sometimes have their own capital invested in the fund. Since the fund has many securities tied into it, it needs many more investors compared to a stock or bond that can be invested in by a single individual. The largest benefit of mutual funds is its diversification. Hypothetically, if one stock in that portfolio declines dramatically, the effects on the whole portfolio would not be as bad since it is just a piece of the fund. [27]

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Mutual funds are managed by active management investors and are often turned to for long-held accounts such as retirement portfolios due to diversification and pools of mixed assets which reduce immediacy risk as well as offer a high return on investment. There are 4 advantages to investing in mutual funds, which are as follows; professional management, diversification, affordability, and liquidity. Investors have the full access to these managers who can offer both support and advice. The hedging of mutual funds means that diversification of individual securities is very high and the ease of access to your money from liquidity is very attractive to investors. Your position in a mutual fund is very liquid in that it can be traded and released on any day that the stock market is open (252 / year).

New Media Impact on Mutual Funds

With the growth of technology and interconnectivity, banking apps and online platforms have grown in both size and popularity in recent years. One of the largest growths in the financial sector comes from a rise in technology applied tools for aid in financial literacy and security. Banking apps such as TD Ameritrade or Credit Suisse accounts offer investment portfolios that are tied into their interactive user platforms and new media applications have allowed for account holders to directly interact with their portfolio managers or asset managers who secure their money. The inclusion of such interactive features allow customers to feel more secure and confident in their choices to invest with the company and ensures an open line of communication if any intervention or measurable actions are to be taken. New media has also influenced mutual funds experience due to online presence since customers no longer need to pick up the telephone and physically call a broker when a deal or transaction is to be made on the stock market, but rather they are now able to log into their accounts online and perform the transactions themselves without the middle man and at a quicker and more efficient rate than ever before. [28]

ETF

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An ETF, or exchange-traded fund, is a marketable security that tracks an index, a commodity, bonds, or a basket of assets like an index fund. Unlike mutual funds, ETF trades like a common stock on a stock exchange. ETFs experience price changes throughout the day as they are bought and sold. ETFs typically have higher daily liquidity and lower fees than mutual fund shares, making them an attractive alternative for individual investors. ETF is a type of fund which owns the underlying assets (shares of stock, bonds, oil futures, gold bars, foreign currency, etc.) and divides ownership of those assets into shares. The actual investment vehicle structure (such as a corporation or investment trust) will vary by country, and within one country there can be multiple structures that co-exist. Shareholders do not directly own or have any direct claim to the underlying investments in the fund; rather they indirectly own these assets.[29] One the major advantage ETF has over most mutual funds is liquidity. Trading ETF is like trading stocks, but instead of owning one single company, you can own many companies. EFTs are bind to a certain index such as the S&P 500 index. EFTs bundle many companies in particular sectors together and sell slices of it like stocks. The cost to own ETF is also lower than mutual funds in terms of management fees and initial purchase fees from brokers.

Alternative Investment

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An alternative investment is an asset that is not one of the conventional investment types, such as stocks, bonds, and cash. Most alternative investment assets are held by institutional investors or accredited, high-net-worth individuals because of the complex natures and limited regulations of the investments. Alternative investments include private equity, hedge funds, managed futures, real estate, commodities and derivatives contracts. Many alternative investments have high minimum investments and fee structures compared to mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). There is also less opportunity to publish verifiable performance data and advertise to potential investors. Most alternative assets have low liquidity compared to conventional assets. [30]

Investment Strategies

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Top-down or bottom-up investing: This type of investment strategy allows the investor to invest in a product based on a unifying theme. This strategy is based on the expectations of a manager in certain industries and entails the widespread buying or selling of assets in this particular industry.

Fundamental or technical analysis: This strategy involves using the technical elements of a stock in order to calculate risk factors and potential growth of the stock based on its financial information and previous trends.

Contrarian investing: This strategy focuses on investors investing in assets that may not be perceived to be profitable in the short term but due to its growth potential might be more valuable in the long term.

Dividend investing: This strategy entails investors buying assets that have a strong record of dividend earning and offers a constant payout for buying the asset. [31]

Value investing This strategy involves focusing on undervalued companies that are trading near book value. This type of company must possess the necessary drivers to lead to growth, which will create value and increase the return on investment. [32]


Retirement

The responsibility for the funding of one's retirement plan has shifted over time from the ability for a corporation to provide their employee a pension to the ability of an employee to contribute to a 401k or an IRA.

Traditional Pension and Social Security Provides an individual a set monthly payment based on the years they worked and how much they earned during their years of employment. Social Security payments are funded by the government while pensions are usually funded by a corporation or other organization. Recently, both pensions and social security have come under scrutiny due to their pending(or current in some cases) insolvency.

Traditional 401k A 401k is a retirement plan that is sponsored by an employer but is mostly funded by the employee's own contributions. Some companies will match employee contributions up to a certain amount. There are two main types of 401k's: Traditional and Roth. A traditional 401k allows an employer to contribute money to the account through direct-payroll deductions before any taxes are withheld. Due to the tax benefits when you contribute, any withdrawals from a traditional 401k will be fully taxed at your current tax bracket. You will still have the option to choose from different investments in which to allocate your money. These investments are usually chosen by the employer or the company chose to be the custodian of the fund.

Roth 401k A Roth 401k enables employees to contribute an after-tax basis. The benefits of this plan are realized when making withdrawals from the account. All qualified withdrawals are tax-free, meaning both the money contributed and any earnings on the money are both treated as tax-free.

Traditional IRA IRA, which stands for Individual Retirement Account, is similar to a 401k in that it allows for individuals to contribute earned income into a retirement account. The difference between the IRA and 401k is that the IRA is set up by an individual with no connection to their employer. There are usually no benefits provided by an employer to the employee to open an IRA. An individual can choose between a traditional or Roth IRA just as they can with the 401k, however, the annual contribution limits for IRA's are generally lower than those of a 401k. For 2017, the annual contribution limit for an IRA is $5,500 for individuals under 50 years of age and $6,500 for individuals over 50 years of age. Within an IRA, an individual can choose from a much greater number of investment vehicles than what's available within a 401k which is set by the custodian.

Incorporating New Media within Investments

New media allows a person to invest in many equities instantly and efficiently. Many years ago if a person wanted to invest in stocks, they had to call a broker over the phone and pay a high commission fee. Now, since new media technologies have improved, a person doesn't need a broker to invest. They simply can either use an online platform like E-trade, Robinhood, and countless other programs that offer an investor a variety of features that allow him to invest in equities whenever they want. Not by computer? No problem! You simply can download an app that allows you to do just as much as you would if you were on your computer. Even if you are new to investing, there are a bunch of forums on the internet that can give you some pointers. Reddit[33] has many subreddits on investing which allows its users to ask questions.

Electronic Trading Platforms

Electronic Trading Platform

Overview

In finance, an electronic trading platform is a computer system that can be used to place orders for financial products over a network with a financial intermediary.[34] This includes products such as stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, and derivatives with a financial intermediary, such as brokers, market makers, Investment banks, or stock exchanges. Such platforms allow electronic trading to be carried out by users from any location and are in contrast to traditional floor trading using open outcry and telephone-based trading.

Electronic trading platforms typically stream live market prices on which users can trade and may provide additional trading tools, such as charting packages, news feeds, and account management functions. Some platforms have been specifically designed to allow individuals to gain access to financial markets that could traditionally only be accessed by specialist trading firms such as allowing margin trading on Forex and derivatives such as a contract for difference. They may also be designed to automatically trade specific strategies based on technical analysis or to do high-frequency trading.

Robinhood Investments

Robinhood

Robinhood is an application on your iPhone that allows individuals to invest in publicly traded companies and exchange-traded funds listed on U.S. exchanges without paying commission.[35] This is an application that is found within the Apple app store that many millennials use because it offers commission-free trading every time they buy or sell a stock or ETF. This application is targeted at new investors that want to throw a small amount of money into an account. This app is particularly great because you can buy and sell as many stocks as you want without a fee. It is possible to simply just start with $100 and invest in small penny stocks without worrying about paying the average $8 commission per trade. As of October 2016, Robinhood does not offer OTC stocks but plans to introduce that. Robinhood has also introduced an Android App and a web-based platform during the first quarter of 2016. [36]

Offering more than just basic selling and buying a stock, it's recently reached out to be a broader market and crowd of traders by offering free options trading as well as trading Bitcoin. [37] [38] By offering these services, it has become more than just an entry platform for trading and encompasses much more for those who wanted it.

Acorns

Acorns

Acorns launched on February 29, 2012, as an investment application platform that allows individuals to easily invest their spare change into diversified portfolios.[39] The current platform requires users to fulfill a three-step process before they begin to extract the benefits of the application's automatic, micro-investing technology. Initially, users must first choose a "round-up" account option which will essentially round up the price points of each of their daily transactions. Users will then have to connect a checking account to Acorns in order for the app to transfer over the small change round-ups into their investment account(s). Finally, they will have to create an investment account online - a simple process that asks a few SEC-required questions and investment goals. The answers to these questions will help Acorns ultimately recommend one of its five portfolio options; each is designed with different levels of risk by Nobel Prize-winning economist Harry Markowitz.[40] The fee for the application is $1 a month until users have accumulated over $5,000 in their account. [41] Once a user has over $5,000, the fee amount charged is 25bps per year. If users would like to withdraw some, or all, of their investments, the money will be transferred back into their checking account the day after their request, with no withdrawal fee.

acornslater

Since 2015, Acorns has been searching for new ways to offer its current investments inside a custodial IRA format. In November 2017, the company announced that due to its recent acquisition of Vault, a Portland-based application focused on helping millennials accumulate retirement finds, Acorns will be launching a new individual retirement account called Acorns Later.[42] Unlike Acorns' current platform which invests user's small round-ups into specific portfolios, Acorns Later will automatically invest a portion of a user's paychecks and or round-ups into a tax-advantaged retirement account. This new product is expected to help users select the best-fit account option for their desired goals and lifestyle, with each option offering distinct tax advantages and eligibility. Just like its current investment accounts, users will first need to accumulate at least $5 on Acorns Later in order to begin saving in any account option.[43]

E*trade

Merill Edge

Merrill Edge is another online brokerage platform under the umbrella of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. It offers similar services to Ameritrade and E-Trade, but for a low flat fee of $6.95. Unlike its own separate platform like that of Ameritrade, Merrill Edge does offer research tools and investing advice. They claim their software to be extremely simple for an average investor as well as convenient; Merrill Edge is located in 2000 of Bank of America's branches, which is far more than most online brokerages. [44]


Scottrade

Scottrade

Scottrade is a privately owned brokerage headquartered in Town and Country, Missouri. Similar to the aforementioned online brokerages, it also offers trading platforms to make trading fast and simple. Scattered is different not only in its $7.00 transaction fee but also in its variety of mutual funds. Not many more online brokerages offer more than 14,000 mutual fund choices. They claim to have investing tools "tailored to your needs." [45]

Stash

Stash

Stash is an investing app that allows individuals that are not well versed in finance but want to include themselves in the investing game. This app allows individuals to buy partial shares in diversified portfolios of stocks and bonds. The different portfolios can range from Conservative, Moderate, and Aggressive which bring different returns based on levels of risk. They allow you to invest with a minimum of $5. This is a game-changer for students and young people that want to start investing their money to grow wealth. Years ago it was difficult for people to start investing and learn about stocks, bonds, levels of risks, and strategies. Because of the advanced technology of apps, it allows you to simply sign-up in seconds, funds your account, and start investing.[46]

Webull

Webull is the latest online broker to focus on commission-free trading registered with the SEC. Webull believes that helps users make investors smarter financial decisions. Along with commission-free trading, it also offers access to in-depth stock market research. [47]


Yahoo!Finance

Yahoo! Finance

Yahoo! Finance is part of Yahoo!'s Group. It provides financial services such as news, data, stock quotes, press releases, financial reports, and original content. It also offers some online tools for personal finance management. People can use the app to trade stocks. As of June 2017, Yahoo Finance is part of Oath, the media division of Verizon. It is the largest business news web site in the United States by monthly traffic. [48]


Investopedia

Investopedia

Investopedia is a website that was created to serve as an educational resource for Internet users who are eager to learn about investing and finance. The website aims to help its readers become more confident when making financial decisions by providing useful investment educational resources, financial concepts, money management, and more. Investopedia maintains its high-quality standards by making sure that all the information and knowledge it provides are “empowering, unbiased, accurate and inclusive.”[49]

The website serves as a learning resource for investors and professionals alike through its Education section. This section includes a dictionary containing hundreds, if not thousands, of terms related to finance and investments. The Education section contains various concepts that students, investors, and even professionals can use to brush up on their finance and accounting knowledge. Users who are taking CFA and Series 7 exams can even utilize the study guides released by Investopedia to prepare.[50] First-time stock investors will also find valuable articles with topics on growth stocks, index funds, and much more in the Stocks subsection. Users also have access to articles on personal finance that give recommendations and suggestions about budgeting and saving money. In addition, reviews and ratings for different financial products such as savings accounts, brokerage accounts, personal loans, and insurance are also available to users to assist them in making the right choice.

Another feature, the Stock Simulator was first introduced by Investopedia in 2003. It allowed users to spend money on the stock market to create their own virtual portfolio. The simulator proved to be a hit as millions of people used it “to practice trading stocks, ETFs, and options in a mock portfolio using virtual money.”[51] The Markets section also has news articles about trending companies and stocks which can be useful to readers as they plan out their financial decisions.


r/WallStreetBets

r/wallstreetbets

/r/wallstreetbets is also known ass WallStreetBets or WSB. This is a subreddit community on the popular website Reddit where members discuss stock and options trading. They are known for their aggressive trading strategies which revolve highly around options trading. Many people often consider their strategies as gambling. There has been a large increase of members of this subreddit with 1.6 million active users. Their growing popularity was due to the popularity of no commission brokers and mobile trading platforms. Members of the community often use such trading strategies to win big like a lottery. Many members would put all of their money in one position and often used to borrow money such as student loans or margin. Such behavior has led to amazing profits or devastating losses.[52]

With the recent boom in retail investors due to COVID-19, many have flocked to the subreddit central of options. Notably, Jim Cramer, a renowned investor, attributed the rally of the market to the retail investors of Wall Street Bets. He went even as far as to say that they have more power than any hedge fund in the world.[53]

Fetch Rewards

Fetch Rewards

There are other platforms that allow for refinancing and gaining rewards for money spent. This follows the same theme of gaining cash back on purchases made. Fetch Rewards allows users to scan a receipt and get points back. Each receipt generates a different amount of points. There are certain promotions that allow purchases from a particular brand or store to get more points than other receipts. The points can then be used to purchase other goods or be claimed as gift cards. These types of applications are not as rare as people may think. Most of these companies make money through advertisements and company partnerships. Therefore, it is important to keep in mind that it is difficult to gain a lot of points quickly. Each receipt without any promotions averages around 25 points (roughly $0.03). Never the less, a receipt that is scanned guarantees cashback.

Financial and Information Technology

Introduction

The world is more quickly paced than ever before. It is important to implement technologically advanced cultures as corporations to keep up with other competitors and gain a competitive advantage over the market. Technologies not only enhance the productivity of a company but also efficiency. It reduces the cost of manufacturing or services via automated algorithms and systems. By doing so it maximizes a company’s profit margin and net income. This is why it is essential to have a firm specifically developed technologies. This is a case, especially for financial services. Technologies especially new media is a powerful and incredible tool when it comes to the financial services industry. It can trigger trades within a split of milliseconds and also generate speculation via media to manipulate market trends and investor complacency. This is a context of paper that does not seem like a big deal. However, there are algorithmic trading hedge funds like Renaissance Technologies who are making billions of dollars a year. Their business model heavily relies on technology and mathematics as all their trades’ secrets and strategies are embarked by algorithms designed to make the optimal and most efficient trade decisions. Also, big names like Goldman Sachs rely heavily on the power of technologies as they too trade in similar terms that of Renaissance Technologies and also as a publicly traded, over-the-surface company, it is easier to be on the press and use media as a mean to create speculation about the market condition. Technologies in financial services is a booming field and will forever be the case as it is helping firms generate larger revenue and better return on their investments.

Market Trend and Reaction

There is a new trend in the financial technology company boom. Financial technologies are not the cheapest investments that there is. A Bloomberg terminal, for instance, would cost $21,000 a year for a single subscription. If you multiply that number by a number of your employees, such a cost is substantial. There are not a lot of firms that can even afford a single terminal subscription. However, there is still a trend of rapid growth in such a field as discussed by Peter in his forum:

[54]"New York, Geneva, 30 June 2015 – Some of the world’s largest finance-sector companies are reviewing their business models following the rapid growth of financial technology (“fintech”) entrants in the sector."

Companies are trying to make money off by simply using technology as a tool. There are companies as mentioned like Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters who are generating billions of dollars as information and financial technology providers in the world.

Financial Technology (FinTech) Major Players

Bloomberg

Bloomberg
Bloomberg Terminal.jpg

Bloomberg is the global business, data and financial news leader gives influential decision makers a critical edge by connecting them to a dynamic network of information, people, and ideas. The company, founded in 1981 by former Solomon Brothers Managing Partner and former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, has grown to become a real powerhouse in all things finance related as the company services over 320,000 clients nationwide. Under the Bloomberg arm, there is a platform called the Bloomberg Terminal. This computer software system allows professionals in the financial services industry and other sectors to access Bloomberg Professional Services, which enables users to track and analyze financial market data in real-time and position transactions on an electronic trading platform of their choosing. The normal rate for a terminal subscription is $24,000 a year. [55]Although this is a hefty amount, investment banks, private equity firms, and hedge funds cover the costs for their employees. The system is so powerful because it delivers news, price quotations, and messaging through its exclusive safe network. New media has helped this platform as individuals share their personal opinions and outlook on the global economy. Although everything should be taken with a grain of salt, this has created a sense of community within the financial services industry. Many traders today engage deeply within the terminal and gain a surplus of followers through their investment rationales. The reason why this platform is so successful is simply because of new media. [56]


Thomson-Reuters

Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters combines industry expertise with innovative technology to deliver critical information to leading decision makers in professional markets. [57] The Thomson Reuters Eikon is the premier product for accessing this content curated by those at Thomson Reuters. The Eikon is reportedly much cheaper than the Bloomberg Terminal as an Eikon subscription costs just $300 to $1,800 per month. It was reported that Eikon's market share of the financial data market is 27% compared to Bloomberg's 32%. [58]

Capital IQ

S&P Capital IQ

S&P Capital IQ is another power player within the financial technology space. [59] Capital IQ was bought by McGraw Hill's Standard and Poor division in 2004 and has since grown to compete with the likes of Bloomberg and Eikon, albeit at a smaller market share, but growing in popularity at an exponential rate.

Factset

Factset

FactSet Research System is a financial data and software company that provides research for Wall Street professionals and individual investors. FactSet was founded in 1978 by Howard Wille and Charles Snyder and is headquartered in Connecticut, with additional offices in the United States and around the world. FactSet combines data from a variety of financial information resources into one source, available to users online. FactSet's system provides market analytics, financial content, stock screening, customized data, and other features. FactSet provides its services for a lower price than some of its competitors because the company uses multiple sources to provide its data, which creates pricing competition between suppliers. The FactSet allows members to access 850 of independent data providers. [60]

As of December 2020, FactSet services nearly 133,000 users in more than 5,800 companies and organizations. [61] FactSet has 48 offices in 22 countries. [62] The company reports it has had a client retention rate of 90% for over 15 years. The company is led by its chief executive officer (CEO), Philip Snow, who assumed the head role in 2015.

Tax Considerations

In the United States, all gains from any investment are subject to tax. Again is when an investor sells their asset for a price higher than which they originally paid for it. To offset some of the gains, if a taxpayer has a capital loss of $3,000 or less than it qualifies as an itemize deduction which can lower your tax liability [63]. To alleviate the burden of taxes, it is essential that you try to plan out your investments and if you have stocks, find out when it is the right time to sell them. Stocks sold within 1 year or less are called Short-term capital gains/losses and the gains are subject to a higher tax rate because they are taxed at your effective tax rate. If you hold stocks for less than the twelve month period you will pay ordinary income tax rates which may be as high as 39% [64]. However, investments held more than one year are called Long-term capital gains/losses and the gains are taxed at a lower rate usually 5% or 15% depending on the tax bracket an individual is in [65].

Regulations

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, aka FINRA, is the regulating body of the financial services industry. Their work sole relies on promoting a fair financial market. FINRA has five key aspects they need to ensure for the general public. Base protection means that every investor should be safe from any aggressive tactics financial services firms could try and push. They also make sure financial intermediaries, and their agents are qualified and licensed within their respective fields. Another aspect they have to maintain is that every security product advertisements provided by financial intermediaries are not misleading to the public and truthful. They ensure that a product being sold to an investor is just what they need, nothing less and nothing more. Lastly, investors have to right to full disclosure regarding the product they are about to purchase and have a stake in. One of the main regulations by FINRA when it comes to social media is FINRA rule 2210. The rule in its entirety defines three solid propositions that financial intermediaries have to follow in order to act as a legal body. The first rule, correspondence, is when written communication is made available to 25 or fewer retail investors within a 30-day period. The second, institutions communication, is when written communication is made available to institutional investors during a 30-day period. Lastly, retail communication is when written communication is made available to 25 or more retail investors during a 30-day period. Before someone was to post on social media, they would need to understand these three rules. It’s questionable whether or not retail communications clients should be posting material that is under the institutional rule. All three rules need a supervisory system to approve any material to be posted on social media. Most entry-level employees do not have the power to approve such material. [66] [67]

Trends

There are many trends that are occurring through new media in the financial services industry. One trend that is occurring is the engagement in social media content. Users on social media are allowed to comment on certain statements through posts by finance companies, according to Albert Raymond, the head of U.S. Privacy & Social Media Compliance at TD Bank. He states ‘If you don’t like what’s being said, change it… And you can’t change the conversation unless you’re in it.” Thus, it is also the responsibility of the public and users to mediate what they read and what financiers provide on new media outlets. A trend that was spoken about before is the relationship new media builds with its client base. 87% of respondents to Edelman’s 2014 brandware study had stated that they want more meaningful relationships with the professionals they do business with. Technological advances have given financial institutions access to the needs and opinions of the general population. Thus, they mold their business strategy and investment decisions based on what is trending. Lastly, with new media, the financial services industry is being affected by external factors such as real-time communication/feedback. This leads to institutions being forced to expand partnerships and open up to new ideas. Recently this year, Citibank Thailand had used Facebook to find potential credit card customers. This idea had been used on a small scale to test the success of future investments. Also, MetLife, an insurance company had used Facebook to find leads on life insurance. This new idea for them increased their lead-to-sale ratio by 2.4 times and decreased their cost per lead by 49% for the year. [68]

The Motley Fool

LMND 4-Day Change

The motley fool company gives investing advice to investors. Their goal is to get people to invest in great companies for the long term [69]. They write articles that influence many people's investing behaviors. This company is taking advantage of new media to help investors spend their money smarter. Along with social media such as Twitter, this company can sometimes influence performance. The most recent example of their influence took place on December 3rd. The motley fool wrote about Lemonade Inc (NYSE: LMND) and highlighted potential growth. The stock surged 22 percent after the recommendation was sent out [70]. Maybe it was a coincidence, but regardless, we can see the power of new media to start a trend.

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