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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">CFA Exam is Evolving to Better Reflect Employee, Employer, and Candidate Needs</h2>







The CFA Institute is making the most significant changes to its program since first introduced back in 1963. All of the changes are designed to better serve employers, candidates, and charterholders. The designation is considered the gold standard in the investment profession, so modifying the program must have involved much thought and debate. Six additions will be rolled out for those beginning the journey toward a CFA this year. The end result will be expanded eligibility, hands-on learning, a more focused curriculum, additional practice available, the ability to specialize, and recognition at every passed level.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">What is a Chartered Financial Analyst?</h3>



A Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) is a professional designation awarded to financial analysts who have passed a rigorous set of exams administered by the CFA Institute. The CFA program is a globally recognized, graduate-level curriculum that covers a range of investment topics, including financial analysis, portfolio management, and ethical and professional standards.



To become a CFA charterholder, candidates must pass three levels of exams, each of which are administered once a year. In addition to passing the exams, candidates must also meet work experience or school requirements.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Eligibility</h3>



The institute is selective in who can be a candidate. In the past, those with a degree and working in the business, needed to be sponsored by two people; first, a current CFA member, and the second the prospective candidate's supervisor. For students, the requirement was that they be in their last year of study and be sponsored by a professor in lieu of a supervisor.



The policy that had been in place is that students with just one year remaining in their studies may seek CFA candidacy. The purpose of the new policy, according to Margeret Franklin CFA, President and CEO of the CFA Institute, is to “provide students with the opportunity to Level 1 of the CFA program as a clear signal to employers that they are serious about a career in the investment industry by getting an early start in the program.” This is the first of the revisions in the program and has been in place since November 2022.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Job Ready Skills</h3>



This new feature recognizes there is a difference between textbook understanding and work. The upcoming study and test material is designed for charterholders to be able to add value much earlier to their employer by imparting practical skills. A practical skills module will be added beginning with those scheduled for the February 2024 Level 1 exam. Level II candidates taking the test&nbsp; in May 2024 will also be tested on this new material. Level III candidates will see this material in 2025.



The impetus for this addition, according to the CFA Institute’s website, is it, “allows us to meet the expressed needs of student candidates, providing them with the opportunity to prepare for internships and investment careers, while also addressing industry demand for well-trained, ethical professionals.”







<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large is-resized"><a href="https://noblecon19.com/"><img src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/new-cc-nc19-banner-1-1024x129.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-61768" width="866" height="108"/></a></figure>







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Expanded Study Material</h3>



Candidates are told they can greatly increase their chances of success taking the exam if they correctly answer 1,000 practice question during study, and score at least 70% on a mock exam. The Institute has added as an extra (not part of the basic study package) three new elements for preparation. &nbsp;



To increase the percentage of successful candidates, the CFA Institute now offers a Level I Practice Pack. It includes 1,000 more practice questions and six additional mock exams to go with the study materials that is standard with registration.



The add-on also provides six additional, exam-quality mock exams. The questions are prepared by the same team that create the exams each year.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">More Focused</h3>



The CFA has branded itself with the promise that 300 hours of study per level is what is needed for success. They recognize that most candidates put in much more time, and the success rate for this tough series of exams is low. The Institute has streamlined study to make more efficient its Level I material beginning with those sitting for the Level I exam in 2024.



To be more efficient, the Institute presumes Level I candidates have already mastered many introductory financial concepts as part of their university studies or career role. To avoid duplication and to streamline Level I curriculum content, they have moved some of this content. It is available separately as reference material for registered candidates.



The content that has been moved to “Pre-Read” incudes topics like the time-value of money, basic statistics, microeconomics, and introduction to company accounts.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Choose Your Specialty</h3>



Starting in 2025, candidates will be able to choose one of three specialty paths to be tested at Level III. The reason for the addition is the CFA curriculum has always prepared candidates for investment and finance buy-side roles. This choice allows the CFA credential to grow and develop to meet the needs of a broader group of individuals and employers.



The CFA traditional path has been to prepare the candidate for a portfolio management role. This traditional path is still included. The Institute is also adding concentrations in private wealth management, and private markets. There will only be one credential, the Chartered Financial Analyst, but three areas of specialty.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Recognition at Every Level</h3>



While the goal of every candidate is to earn a full-fledged CFA designation, each level is a significant achievement. Now, CFA Institute awarded digital badges will recognize success at the first two levels.



The digital badges, to be used on social media when rolled out later in 2023 will be accompanied by marketing and awareness-building with employers, to improve the visibility and value placed on progress through the CFA program. The goal is for candidates to be distinguished in the market, have one-click social sharing, with instant verification to employers and colleagues to boost credibility and solidify a candidates’ accomplishment.



Overall the change, is to signal to the market that completing Levels I and II are substantial achievements, with tangible recognition of a candidate's commitment to the industry through their learned skills and experience, professionalism and ethical practices.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Take Away</h3>



The world investment world is changing, and the CFA Institute is responding in order to better serve those that benefit from this prestigious designation. Candidates will now have more choices, more study material available, and the ability to take credit for their rigorous studies beginning after passing Level I.



<a href="mailto:phoffman@channelchek.com">Paul Hoffman</a>



Managing Editor, Channelchek











Sources



<a href="https://300hours.com/cfa-requirements/#:~:text=The%20CFA%20Institute%20is%20the,the%20other%20your%20current%20supervisor.">https://300hours.com/cfa-requirements/#:~:text=The%20CFA%20Institute%20is%20the,the%20other%20your%20current%20supervisor.</a>



<a href="https://players.brightcove.net/pages/v1/index.html?accountId=1183701590001&amp;playerId=rkcysOOFe&amp;videoId=6322622086112&amp;autoplay=true">CFA® Program The Next Evolution (brightcove.net)</a>

<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="663" height="443" src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/cc-news-cfa-evolution-663.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-62142" srcset="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/cc-news-cfa-evolution-663.jpg 663w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/cc-news-cfa-evolution-663-300x200.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 663px) 100vw, 663px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Image Credit: WOCintech Chat (Flickr)</figcaption></figure></div>


<h2 class="wp-block-heading">CFA Exam is Evolving to Better Reflect Employee, Employer, and Candidate Needs</h2>







The CFA Institute is making the most significant changes to its program since first introduced back in 1963. All of the changes are designed to better serve employers, candidates, and charterholders. The designation is considered the gold standard in the investment profession, so modifying the program must have involved much thought and debate. Six additions will be rolled out for those beginning the journey toward a CFA this year. The end result will be expanded eligibility, hands-on learning, a more focused curriculum, additional practice available, the ability to specialize, and recognition at every passed level.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">What is a Chartered Financial Analyst?</h3>



A Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) is a professional designation awarded to financial analysts who have passed a rigorous set of exams administered by the CFA Institute. The CFA program is a globally recognized, graduate-level curriculum that covers a range of investment topics, including financial analysis, portfolio management, and ethical and professional standards.



To become a CFA charterholder, candidates must pass three levels of exams, each of which are administered once a year. In addition to passing the exams, candidates must also meet work experience or school requirements.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Eligibility</h3>



The institute is selective in who can be a candidate. In the past, those with a degree and working in the business, needed to be sponsored by two people; first, a current CFA member, and the second the prospective candidate&#8217;s supervisor. For students, the requirement was that they be in their last year of study and be sponsored by a professor in lieu of a supervisor.



The policy that had been in place is that students with just one year remaining in their studies may seek CFA candidacy. The purpose of the new policy, according to Margeret Franklin CFA, President and CEO of the CFA Institute, is to “provide students with the opportunity to Level 1 of the CFA program as a clear signal to employers that they are serious about a career in the investment industry by getting an early start in the program.” This is the first of the revisions in the program and has been in place since November 2022.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Job Ready Skills</h3>



This new feature recognizes there is a difference between textbook understanding and work. The upcoming study and test material is designed for charterholders to be able to add value much earlier to their employer by imparting practical skills. A practical skills module will be added beginning with those scheduled for the February 2024 Level 1 exam. Level II candidates taking the test&nbsp; in May 2024 will also be tested on this new material. Level III candidates will see this material in 2025.



The impetus for this addition, according to the CFA Institute’s website, is it, “allows us to meet the expressed needs of student candidates, providing them with the opportunity to prepare for internships and investment careers, while also addressing industry demand for well-trained, ethical professionals.”






<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><a href="https://noblecon19.com/"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/new-cc-nc19-banner-1-1024x129.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-61768" width="866" height="108" srcset="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/new-cc-nc19-banner-1-1024x129.jpg 1024w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/new-cc-nc19-banner-1-300x38.jpg 300w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/new-cc-nc19-banner-1-768x97.jpg 768w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/new-cc-nc19-banner-1-1536x193.jpg 1536w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/new-cc-nc19-banner-1.jpg 1756w" sizes="(max-width: 866px) 100vw, 866px" /></a></figure></div>






<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Expanded Study Material</h3>



Candidates are told they can greatly increase their chances of success taking the exam if they correctly answer 1,000 practice question during study, and score at least 70% on a mock exam. The Institute has added as an extra (not part of the basic study package) three new elements for preparation. &nbsp;



To increase the percentage of successful candidates, the CFA Institute now offers a Level I Practice Pack. It includes 1,000 more practice questions and six additional mock exams to go with the study materials that is standard with registration.



The add-on also provides six additional, exam-quality mock exams. The questions are prepared by the same team that create the exams each year.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">More Focused</h3>



The CFA has branded itself with the promise that 300 hours of study per level is what is needed for success. They recognize that most candidates put in much more time, and the success rate for this tough series of exams is low. The Institute has streamlined study to make more efficient its Level I material beginning with those sitting for the Level I exam in 2024.



To be more efficient, the Institute presumes Level I candidates have already mastered many introductory financial concepts as part of their university studies or career role. To avoid duplication and to streamline Level I curriculum content, they have moved some of this content. It is available separately as reference material for registered candidates.



The content that has been moved to “Pre-Read” incudes topics like the time-value of money, basic statistics, microeconomics, and introduction to company accounts.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Choose Your Specialty</h3>



Starting in 2025, candidates will be able to choose one of three specialty paths to be tested at Level III. The reason for the addition is the CFA curriculum has always prepared candidates for investment and finance buy-side roles. This choice allows the CFA credential to grow and develop to meet the needs of a broader group of individuals and employers.



The CFA traditional path has been to prepare the candidate for a portfolio management role. This traditional path is still included. The Institute is also adding concentrations in private wealth management, and private markets. There will only be one credential, the Chartered Financial Analyst, but three areas of specialty.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Recognition at Every Level</h3>



While the goal of every candidate is to earn a full-fledged CFA designation, each level is a significant achievement. Now, CFA Institute awarded digital badges will recognize success at the first two levels.



The digital badges, to be used on social media when rolled out later in 2023 will be accompanied by marketing and awareness-building with employers, to improve the visibility and value placed on progress through the CFA program. The goal is for candidates to be distinguished in the market, have one-click social sharing, with instant verification to employers and colleagues to boost credibility and solidify a candidates’ accomplishment.



Overall the change, is to signal to the market that completing Levels I and II are substantial achievements, with tangible recognition of a candidate&#8217;s commitment to the industry through their learned skills and experience, professionalism and ethical practices.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Take Away</h3>



The world investment world is changing, and the CFA Institute is responding in order to better serve those that benefit from this prestigious designation. Candidates will now have more choices, more study material available, and the ability to take credit for their rigorous studies beginning after passing Level I.



<a href="mailto:phoffman@channelchek.com">Paul Hoffman</a>



Managing Editor, Channelchek











Sources



<a href="https://300hours.com/cfa-requirements/#:~:text=The%20CFA%20Institute%20is%20the,the%20other%20your%20current%20supervisor.">https://300hours.com/cfa-requirements/#:~:text=The%20CFA%20Institute%20is%20the,the%20other%20your%20current%20supervisor.</a>



<a href="https://players.brightcove.net/pages/v1/index.html?accountId=1183701590001&amp;playerId=rkcysOOFe&amp;videoId=6322622086112&amp;autoplay=true">CFA® Program The Next Evolution (brightcove.net)</a>

Image Credit: WOCintech Chat (Flickr)


CFA Exam is Evolving to Better Reflect Employee, Employer, and Candidate Needs







The CFA Institute is making the most significant changes to its program since first introduced back in 1963. All of the changes are designed to better serve employers, candidates, and charterholders. The designation is considered the gold standard in the investment profession, so modifying the program must have involved much thought and debate. Six additions will be rolled out for those beginning the journey toward a CFA this year. The end result will be expanded eligibility, hands-on learning, a more focused curriculum, additional practice available, the ability to specialize, and recognition at every passed level.







What is a Chartered Financial Analyst?



A Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) is a professional designation awarded to financial analysts who have passed a rigorous set of exams administered by the CFA Institute. The CFA program is a globally recognized, graduate-level curriculum that covers a range of investment topics, including financial analysis, portfolio management, and ethical and professional standards.



To become a CFA charterholder, candidates must pass three levels of exams, each of which are administered once a year. In addition to passing the exams, candidates must also meet work experience or school requirements.







Eligibility



The institute is selective in who can be a candidate. In the past, those with a degree and working in the business, needed to be sponsored by two people; first, a current CFA member, and the second the prospective candidate&#8217;s supervisor. For students, the requirement was that they be in their last year of study and be sponsored by a professor in lieu of a supervisor.



The policy that had been in place is that students with just one year remaining in their studies may seek CFA candidacy. The purpose of the new policy, according to Margeret Franklin CFA, President and CEO of the CFA Institute, is to “provide students with the opportunity to Level 1 of the CFA program as a clear signal to employers that they are serious about a career in the investment industry by getting an early start in the program.” This is the first of the revisions in the program and has been in place since November 2022.







Job Ready Skills



This new feature recognizes there is a difference between textbook understanding and work. The upcoming study and test material is designed for charterholders to be able to add value much earlier to their employer by imparting practical skills. A practical skills module will be added beginning with those scheduled for the February 2024 Level 1 exam. Level II candidates taking the test&nbsp; in May 2024 will also be tested on this new material. Level III candidates will see this material in 2025.



The impetus for this addition, according to the CFA Institute’s website, is it, “allows us to meet the expressed needs of student candidates, providing them with the opportunity to prepare for internships and investment careers, while also addressing industry demand for well-trained, ethical professionals.”














Expanded Study Material



Candidates are told they can greatly increase their chances of success taking the exam if they correctly answer 1,000 practice question during study, and score at least 70% on a mock exam. The Institute has added as an extra (not part of the basic study package) three new elements for preparation. &nbsp;



To increase the percentage of successful candidates, the CFA Institute now offers a Level I Practice Pack. It includes 1,000 more practice questions and six additional mock exams to go with the study materials that is standard with registration.



The add-on also provides six additional, exam-quality mock exams. The questions are prepared by the same team that create the exams each year.







More Focused



The CFA has branded itself with the promise that 300 hours of study per level is what is needed for success. They recognize that most candidates put in much more time, and the success rate for this tough series of exams is low. The Institute has streamlined study to make more efficient its Level I material beginning with those sitting for the Level I exam in 2024.



To be more efficient, the Institute presumes Level I candidates have already mastered many introductory financial concepts as part of their university studies or career role. To avoid duplication and to streamline Level I curriculum content, they have moved some of this content. It is available separately as reference material for registered candidates.



The content that has been moved to “Pre-Read” incudes topics like the time-value of money, basic statistics, microeconomics, and introduction to company accounts.







Choose Your Specialty



Starting in 2025, candidates will be able to choose one of three specialty paths to be tested at Level III. The reason for the addition is the CFA curriculum has always prepared candidates for investment and finance buy-side roles. This choice allows the CFA credential to grow and develop to meet the needs of a broader group of individuals and employers.



The CFA traditional path has been to prepare the candidate for a portfolio management role. This traditional path is still included. The Institute is also adding concentrations in private wealth management, and private markets. There will only be one credential, the Chartered Financial Analyst, but three areas of specialty.







Recognition at Every Level



While the goal of every candidate is to earn a full-fledged CFA designation, each level is a significant achievement. Now, CFA Institute awarded digital badges will recognize success at the first two levels.



The digital badges, to be used on social media when rolled out later in 2023 will be accompanied by marketing and awareness-building with employers, to improve the visibility and value placed on progress through the CFA program. The goal is for candidates to be distinguished in the market, have one-click social sharing, with instant verification to employers and colleagues to boost credibility and solidify a candidates’ accomplishment.



Overall the change, is to signal to the market that completing Levels I and II are substantial achievements, with tangible recognition of a candidate&#8217;s commitment to the industry through their learned skills and experience, professionalism and ethical practices.







Take Away



The world investment world is changing, and the CFA Institute is responding in order to better serve those that benefit from this prestigious designation. Candidates will now have more choices, more study material available, and the ability to take credit for their rigorous studies beginning after passing Level I.



Paul Hoffman



Managing Editor, Channelchek











Sources



https://300hours.com/cfa-requirements/#:~:text=The%20CFA%20Institute%20is%20the,the%20other%20your%20current%20supervisor.



CFA® Program The Next Evolution (brightcove.net)

The CFA Institute Makes First Major Change to Program Since Inception

<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/cc-news-ira-money-663-1024x603.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-62162"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Image Credit: Marco Verch (Flickr)</figcaption></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">With New Money Deposited Into Their IRA Accounts, Savers Are Faced With an Age-Old Question</h2>







With days until the IRS is expecting our tax filings, IRA season is in full swing. With this comes contributions to IRA accounts and individual investment decisions. This year economic uncertainty is a regular topic of conversation; the question has come up in both personal and professional conversations whether or not this money should be invested immediately or wait for a clearer sign of economic and market direction. I asked three financial professionals, each of whose opinion I respect. Did I get three different answers? You be the judge.







<a href="https://www.creighton.edu/campus-directory/johnson-robert-r">Robert R. Johnson, PhD, CFA, CAIA,</a> is the former deputy CEO of the CFA Institute and was President of the College of Financial Services. Currently Dr. Johnson is a Professor of Finance, Heider College of Business at Creighton University. His credentials also include co-author of The Tools and Techniques of Investment Planning, Strategic Value Investing, Investment Banking for Dummies, and others. Overall, his response argues for not shying away from what traditionally has been better-performing investments over time.



He highlighted that investing for as long as possible should involve not waiting until a week before the tax date and making a maximum deposit. If your money is sitting in cash rather than invested, there is a cash performance drag as cash including money markets, more often than not, is a worse performer than equities.



The finance professor pointed out the statistical truth that holding significant amounts of cash ensures that one will suffer significant opportunity losses. Johnson says, “when it comes to building wealth, one can either sleep well or eat well.” He explains, “investing conservatively allows one to sleep well, as there isn’t much volatility. But, it doesn’t allow you to eat well in the long run because your account won’t grow much.”



He backs this up with data compiled by Ibbotson Associates data on large capitalization stocks (think S&amp;P 500), which returned 10.1% compounded annually from 1926-2022. Johnson points out that during the same years, government bonds returned 5.2% annually and T-bills returned 3.2% annually. He explained, “to put it in perspective, $1.00 in invested in the S&amp;P 500 at the start of 1926 would have grown to $11,307.59 (with all dividends reinvested).” He then compared, “that same dollar invested in T-bills would have grown to $21.23.”



What to invest in is certainly an important decision, Dr. Johnson explained, “The surest way to build wealth over long time horizons is to invest in a diversified portfolio of common stocks. Someone with a long time horizon should not have exposure to money market instruments, yet many investors do because they fear the volatility of the stock market.”







<a href="https://noblecapitalmarkets.com/home">Dennie Ceelen</a>, CFP has been part of the Noble Capital Markets Private Client Group in Boca Raton, FL since 2002. He provides wealth management services to NOBLE Clients. He’s also a committee member of The Society of Financial Service Professionals.



When asked if one should invest or wait, he apologetically answered, “it depends.”



Mr. Ceelen explains that when it comes to investments, one size does not fit all. A nineteen-year-old with little or no table income and only an extra $1,000 to put away may be better off investing in education or a car to get them to work. This idea of no IRA deposit at all could even be true of a couple saving to buy their first home. If putting the maximum away for retirement, 40 years away, prevents the purchase of a home in the next year or two, it may not make sense to fund an IRA at all for them this tax year.



For those that are regularly funding an IRA he said, “if your timeline is 30-years until you retire, invest immediately.” Ceelen explained, the general rule of thumb is that the markets over time will go up, the market will be higher in 30 years,” is the expectation based on past experience.



While talking about those with far less than 30-years until retirement, he pulled out a simple spreadsheet that shows that markets don’t always go up. A screenshot of this spreadsheet of major index performance from the close of business the last day of 2021 until March 29, 2023 is provided below.







<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full is-resized"><img src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230331-article2-1.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-62164" width="848" height="249"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">After 15-months of market downturn, history suggests the losses are temporary</figcaption></figure>







Dennie Ceelen used the spreadsheet to show why he said “it depends.” He said, “if you are retiring in the next two years, make the contribution, take advantage of the tax break but let it sit in cash, or take advantage of the high rates on money markets/short term CD’s.”



“There is no reason to partake in this volatile market if you are that close to retirement,” he cautioned for those close to retirement. Making decisions like this is why many hire financial professionals. 







<a href="https://wrightfinancialgroup.com/david-m-wright">David M. Wright, CLU, ChFC,</a> president and owner of Wright Financial Group, with offices in Ohio and Florida is a 36-year veteran in the financial services industry. He hosts a local radio show called Retirement Income Source with David Wright, and is a frequent guest on TD Ameritrade Insights. One of Mr. Wright’s focuses is on providing workable retirement solutions for those in or close to retirement. His upcoming book, Bonfire of the Sanities: Reset Your Retirement Portfolio for Today’s Financial Lunacy, will be available later this year.



“How you invest your IRA for the 2022-23 tax season has been and always will be a function of your time horizon and propensity for risk,” Wright was quick to point out.  







<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://noblecon19.com/"><img src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/new-cc-nc19-banner-1-1024x129.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-61768"/></a></figure>



<a href="https://noblecon19.com/"></a>



Wright’s explanation as to whether the timing is right also included what he believes would be the more suitable investment. He offered, “for individuals who are more than 10-15 years away from needing to access their cash, choosing high quality, dividend-paying companies with good cash flow are probably the best bet right now, given the economic tightening that will certainly impact more highly leveraged companies that have to refinance their debt in the future.” He cautioned that those in the age category above, &nbsp;“growth stocks, in particular those that pay very small dividends will probably be the most impacted by the Federal Reserve's mandate to fight inflation by raising rates.”



For those even closer to retirement, five to ten years, he said that a dollar-cost averaging strategy to more slowly enter the market is more prudent,  “you are systematically buying into the market without worrying about the purchase price of the investment itself," Wright said.   



“For those individuals that are within five years or less of retirement, pushing the pause button and purchasing short duration treasuries probably makes the most sense right now due to the higher yields offered courtesy of the Federal Reserve - with 3 month yields 4.8% at the moment,” David Wright explained for those with less time before needing the account for living expenses.



Wright added one more note of advice for the current tax season,  “with the mixed signals of financial news from bank failures to reducing inflation, it probably makes sense to be more cautious right now until the financial storms subside.”







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Take Away</h3>



There are many right ways to do anything. Multiply that by the different stages of life, and then there are many more. If you are making a last-minute 2022 tax year IRA deposit, hopefully, there are words of wisdom among these three professionals that have been useful. 



Overall it seems time in the market is expected to outperform time out of the market, with the caveat, over the short term, anything can happen.



<a href="mailto:phoffman@channelchek.com">Paul Hoffman</a>



Managing Editor, Channelchek

<div class="wp-block-image">
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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">With New Money Deposited Into Their IRA Accounts, Savers Are Faced With an Age-Old Question</h2>







With days until the IRS is expecting our tax filings, IRA season is in full swing. With this comes contributions to IRA accounts and individual investment decisions. This year economic uncertainty is a regular topic of conversation; the question has come up in both personal and professional conversations whether or not this money should be invested immediately or wait for a clearer sign of economic and market direction. I asked three financial professionals, each of whose opinion I respect. Did I get three different answers? You be the judge.







<a href="https://www.creighton.edu/campus-directory/johnson-robert-r">Robert R. Johnson, PhD, CFA, CAIA,</a> is the former deputy CEO of the CFA Institute and was President of the College of Financial Services. Currently Dr. Johnson is a Professor of Finance, Heider College of Business at Creighton University. His credentials also include co-author of The Tools and Techniques of Investment Planning, Strategic Value Investing, Investment Banking for Dummies, and others. Overall, his response argues for not shying away from what traditionally has been better-performing investments over time.



He highlighted that investing for as long as possible should involve not waiting until a week before the tax date and making a maximum deposit. If your money is sitting in cash rather than invested, there is a cash performance drag as cash including money markets, more often than not, is a worse performer than equities.



The finance professor pointed out the statistical truth that holding significant amounts of cash ensures that one will suffer significant opportunity losses. Johnson says, “when it comes to building wealth, one can either sleep well or eat well.” He explains, “investing conservatively allows one to sleep well, as there isn’t much volatility. But, it doesn’t allow you to eat well in the long run because your account won’t grow much.”



He backs this up with data compiled by Ibbotson Associates data on large capitalization stocks (think S&amp;P 500), which returned 10.1% compounded annually from 1926-2022. Johnson points out that during the same years, government bonds returned 5.2% annually and T-bills returned 3.2% annually. He explained, “to put it in perspective, $1.00 in invested in the S&amp;P 500 at the start of 1926 would have grown to $11,307.59 (with all dividends reinvested).” He then compared, “that same dollar invested in T-bills would have grown to $21.23.”



What to invest in is certainly an important decision, Dr. Johnson explained, “The surest way to build wealth over long time horizons is to invest in a diversified portfolio of common stocks. Someone with a long time horizon should not have exposure to money market instruments, yet many investors do because they fear the volatility of the stock market.”







<a href="https://noblecapitalmarkets.com/home">Dennie Ceelen</a>, CFP has been part of the Noble Capital Markets Private Client Group in Boca Raton, FL since 2002. He provides wealth management services to NOBLE Clients. He’s also a committee member of The Society of Financial Service Professionals.



When asked if one should invest or wait, he apologetically answered, “it depends.”



Mr. Ceelen explains that when it comes to investments, one size does not fit all. A nineteen-year-old with little or no table income and only an extra $1,000 to put away may be better off investing in education or a car to get them to work. This idea of no IRA deposit at all could even be true of a couple saving to buy their first home. If putting the maximum away for retirement, 40 years away, prevents the purchase of a home in the next year or two, it may not make sense to fund an IRA at all for them this tax year.



For those that are regularly funding an IRA he said, “if your timeline is 30-years until you retire, invest immediately.” Ceelen explained, the general rule of thumb is that the markets over time will go up, the market will be higher in 30 years,” is the expectation based on past experience.



While talking about those with far less than 30-years until retirement, he pulled out a simple spreadsheet that shows that markets don’t always go up. A screenshot of this spreadsheet of major index performance from the close of business the last day of 2021 until March 29, 2023 is provided below.






<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full is-resized"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230331-article2-1.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-62164" width="848" height="249" srcset="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230331-article2-1.jpg 624w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230331-article2-1-300x88.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 848px) 100vw, 848px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">After 15-months of market downturn, history suggests the losses are temporary</figcaption></figure></div>






Dennie Ceelen used the spreadsheet to show why he said “it depends.” He said, “if you are retiring in the next two years, make the contribution, take advantage of the tax break but let it sit in cash, or take advantage of the high rates on money markets/short term CD’s.”



“There is no reason to partake in this volatile market if you are that close to retirement,” he cautioned for those close to retirement. Making decisions like this is why many hire financial professionals. 







<a href="https://wrightfinancialgroup.com/david-m-wright">David M. Wright, CLU, ChFC,</a> president and owner of Wright Financial Group, with offices in Ohio and Florida is a 36-year veteran in the financial services industry. He hosts a local radio show called Retirement Income Source with David Wright, and is a frequent guest on TD Ameritrade Insights. One of Mr. Wright’s focuses is on providing workable retirement solutions for those in or close to retirement. His upcoming book, Bonfire of the Sanities: Reset Your Retirement Portfolio for Today’s Financial Lunacy, will be available later this year.



“How you invest your IRA for the 2022-23 tax season has been and always will be a function of your time horizon and propensity for risk,” Wright was quick to point out.  






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Wright’s explanation as to whether the timing is right also included what he believes would be the more suitable investment. He offered, “for individuals who are more than 10-15 years away from needing to access their cash, choosing high quality, dividend-paying companies with good cash flow are probably the best bet right now, given the economic tightening that will certainly impact more highly leveraged companies that have to refinance their debt in the future.” He cautioned that those in the age category above, &nbsp;“growth stocks, in particular those that pay very small dividends will probably be the most impacted by the Federal Reserve&#8217;s mandate to fight inflation by raising rates.”



For those even closer to retirement, five to ten years, he said that a dollar-cost averaging strategy to more slowly enter the market is more prudent,  “you are systematically buying into the market without worrying about the purchase price of the investment itself,&#8221; Wright said.   



“For those individuals that are within five years or less of retirement, pushing the pause button and purchasing short duration treasuries probably makes the most sense right now due to the higher yields offered courtesy of the Federal Reserve &#8211; with 3 month yields 4.8% at the moment,” David Wright explained for those with less time before needing the account for living expenses.



Wright added one more note of advice for the current tax season,  “with the mixed signals of financial news from bank failures to reducing inflation, it probably makes sense to be more cautious right now until the financial storms subside.”







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Take Away</h3>



There are many right ways to do anything. Multiply that by the different stages of life, and then there are many more. If you are making a last-minute 2022 tax year IRA deposit, hopefully, there are words of wisdom among these three professionals that have been useful. 



Overall it seems time in the market is expected to outperform time out of the market, with the caveat, over the short term, anything can happen.



<a href="mailto:phoffman@channelchek.com">Paul Hoffman</a>



Managing Editor, Channelchek

Image Credit: Marco Verch (Flickr)


With New Money Deposited Into Their IRA Accounts, Savers Are Faced With an Age-Old Question







With days until the IRS is expecting our tax filings, IRA season is in full swing. With this comes contributions to IRA accounts and individual investment decisions. This year economic uncertainty is a regular topic of conversation; the question has come up in both personal and professional conversations whether or not this money should be invested immediately or wait for a clearer sign of economic and market direction. I asked three financial professionals, each of whose opinion I respect. Did I get three different answers? You be the judge.







Robert R. Johnson, PhD, CFA, CAIA, is the former deputy CEO of the CFA Institute and was President of the College of Financial Services. Currently Dr. Johnson is a Professor of Finance, Heider College of Business at Creighton University. His credentials also include co-author of The Tools and Techniques of Investment Planning, Strategic Value Investing, Investment Banking for Dummies, and others. Overall, his response argues for not shying away from what traditionally has been better-performing investments over time.



He highlighted that investing for as long as possible should involve not waiting until a week before the tax date and making a maximum deposit. If your money is sitting in cash rather than invested, there is a cash performance drag as cash including money markets, more often than not, is a worse performer than equities.



The finance professor pointed out the statistical truth that holding significant amounts of cash ensures that one will suffer significant opportunity losses. Johnson says, “when it comes to building wealth, one can either sleep well or eat well.” He explains, “investing conservatively allows one to sleep well, as there isn’t much volatility. But, it doesn’t allow you to eat well in the long run because your account won’t grow much.”



He backs this up with data compiled by Ibbotson Associates data on large capitalization stocks (think S&amp;P 500), which returned 10.1% compounded annually from 1926-2022. Johnson points out that during the same years, government bonds returned 5.2% annually and T-bills returned 3.2% annually. He explained, “to put it in perspective, $1.00 in invested in the S&amp;P 500 at the start of 1926 would have grown to $11,307.59 (with all dividends reinvested).” He then compared, “that same dollar invested in T-bills would have grown to $21.23.”



What to invest in is certainly an important decision, Dr. Johnson explained, “The surest way to build wealth over long time horizons is to invest in a diversified portfolio of common stocks. Someone with a long time horizon should not have exposure to money market instruments, yet many investors do because they fear the volatility of the stock market.”







Dennie Ceelen, CFP has been part of the Noble Capital Markets Private Client Group in Boca Raton, FL since 2002. He provides wealth management services to NOBLE Clients. He’s also a committee member of The Society of Financial Service Professionals.



When asked if one should invest or wait, he apologetically answered, “it depends.”



Mr. Ceelen explains that when it comes to investments, one size does not fit all. A nineteen-year-old with little or no table income and only an extra $1,000 to put away may be better off investing in education or a car to get them to work. This idea of no IRA deposit at all could even be true of a couple saving to buy their first home. If putting the maximum away for retirement, 40 years away, prevents the purchase of a home in the next year or two, it may not make sense to fund an IRA at all for them this tax year.



For those that are regularly funding an IRA he said, “if your timeline is 30-years until you retire, invest immediately.” Ceelen explained, the general rule of thumb is that the markets over time will go up, the market will be higher in 30 years,” is the expectation based on past experience.



While talking about those with far less than 30-years until retirement, he pulled out a simple spreadsheet that shows that markets don’t always go up. A screenshot of this spreadsheet of major index performance from the close of business the last day of 2021 until March 29, 2023 is provided below.







After 15-months of market downturn, history suggests the losses are temporary






Dennie Ceelen used the spreadsheet to show why he said “it depends.” He said, “if you are retiring in the next two years, make the contribution, take advantage of the tax break but let it sit in cash, or take advantage of the high rates on money markets/short term CD’s.”



“There is no reason to partake in this volatile market if you are that close to retirement,” he cautioned for those close to retirement. Making decisions like this is why many hire financial professionals. 







David M. Wright, CLU, ChFC, president and owner of Wright Financial Group, with offices in Ohio and Florida is a 36-year veteran in the financial services industry. He hosts a local radio show called Retirement Income Source with David Wright, and is a frequent guest on TD Ameritrade Insights. One of Mr. Wright’s focuses is on providing workable retirement solutions for those in or close to retirement. His upcoming book, Bonfire of the Sanities: Reset Your Retirement Portfolio for Today’s Financial Lunacy, will be available later this year.



“How you invest your IRA for the 2022-23 tax season has been and always will be a function of your time horizon and propensity for risk,” Wright was quick to point out.  














Wright’s explanation as to whether the timing is right also included what he believes would be the more suitable investment. He offered, “for individuals who are more than 10-15 years away from needing to access their cash, choosing high quality, dividend-paying companies with good cash flow are probably the best bet right now, given the economic tightening that will certainly impact more highly leveraged companies that have to refinance their debt in the future.” He cautioned that those in the age category above, &nbsp;“growth stocks, in particular those that pay very small dividends will probably be the most impacted by the Federal Reserve&#8217;s mandate to fight inflation by raising rates.”



For those even closer to retirement, five to ten years, he said that a dollar-cost averaging strategy to more slowly enter the market is more prudent,  “you are systematically buying into the market without worrying about the purchase price of the investment itself,&#8221; Wright said.   



“For those individuals that are within five years or less of retirement, pushing the pause button and purchasing short duration treasuries probably makes the most sense right now due to the higher yields offered courtesy of the Federal Reserve &#8211; with 3 month yields 4.8% at the moment,” David Wright explained for those with less time before needing the account for living expenses.



Wright added one more note of advice for the current tax season,  “with the mixed signals of financial news from bank failures to reducing inflation, it probably makes sense to be more cautious right now until the financial storms subside.”







Take Away



There are many right ways to do anything. Multiply that by the different stages of life, and then there are many more. If you are making a last-minute 2022 tax year IRA deposit, hopefully, there are words of wisdom among these three professionals that have been useful. 



Overall it seems time in the market is expected to outperform time out of the market, with the caveat, over the short term, anything can happen.



Paul Hoffman



Managing Editor, Channelchek

Does it Make Sense to Invest New IRA Deposits in a Confusing Market?

Quotes

Taxes

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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Petrodollar Dusk, Petroyuan Dawn: What Investors Need To Know</h2>







While most investors were trying to gauge the Federal Reserve’s next moves in light of recent bank failures last week, something interesting happened in Moscow.



During a three-day state visit, Chinese President Xi Jinping held friendly talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a show of unity, as both countries increasingly seek to position themselves as leaders of what they call a “multipolar world order,” one that challenges U.S.-centric alliances and agreements.



Among those agreements is the petrodollar, which has been in place for over 50 years.&nbsp;



In case you’re wondering, “petrodollars” are not a real currency. They’re simply dollars being used to trade oil. Early in the 1970s, the U.S. government provided economic aid to Saudi Arabia, its chief oil-producing rival, in exchange for assurances that Riyadh would price its crude exports exclusively in the U.S. dollar. In 1975, other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) followed suit, and the petrodollar was born.



This had the immediate effect of strengthening the U.S. dollar. Since countries around the world had to have dollars on hand in order to buy oil (and other key commodities such as gold, also priced in dollars), the greenback became the world’s reserve currency, a status formerly enjoyed by the British pound, French franc and Dutch guilder.



All things must come to an end, however. We may be witnessing the end of the petrodollar as more and more countries, including China and Russia, are agreeing to make settlements in currencies other than the U.S. dollar. This could have wide-ranging implications on not just a macro scale but also investment portfolios.







This article was republished with permission from<a href="https://www.usfunds.com/resource-listing/?resource-type=frank-talk"> Frank Talk</a>, a CEO Blog by Frank Holmes of <a href="https://www.usfunds.com/">U.S. Global Investors</a> (<a href="https://www.channelchek.com/company/grow">GROW</a>). Find more of Frank’s articles <a href="https://www.usfunds.com/about/">here</a> – Originally published March 27, 2023







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Dawn For The Petroyuan?</h3>



Putin couldn’t have been more explicit. During Xi’s state visit, he named the Chinese yuan as his favored currency to conduct trade in. Ever since Western sanctions were levied on the Eastern European country for its invasion of Ukraine early last year, Russia has increasingly depended on its southern neighbor to buy the oil other countries won’t touch.&nbsp;



In just the first two months of 2023, China’s imports from Russia totaled $9.3 billion, exceeding full-year 2022 imports in dollar terms. In February alone, China imported over 2 million barrels of Russian crude, a new record high.







<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full is-resized"><img src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230330-article2-1.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-62112" width="838" height="416"/></figure>







Except that now, the yuan is presumably being used to make these settlements.



As Zoltar Pozsar, New York-based economist and investment research director at Credit Suisse, put it recently: “That’s dusk for the petrodollar… and dawn for the petroyuan.”







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">U.S. Dollar Still The World’s Reserve Currency, But Its Dominance Is Slipping</h3>



Before you dismiss Pozsar’s comment as an exaggeration, consider that other major OPEC nations and BRICS members (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are either accepting yuan already or strongly considering it. Russia, Iran and Venezuela account for about 40% of the world’s proven oilfields, and the three sell their oil in exchange for yuan. Turkey, Argentina, Indonesia and heavyweight oil producer Saudi Arabia have all applied for admittance into BRICS, while Egypt became a new member this week.



What this suggests is that the yuan’s role as a reserve currency will continue to strengthen, signifying a broader shift in the global power balance and potentially giving China a bigger hand with which to shape economic policies that affect us all.



To be clear, the U.S. dollar remains the world’s top reserve currency for now, though its share of global central banks’ official holdings has slipped in the past 20 years, from 72% in 2001 to just under 60% today. By contrast, the yuan’s share of official holdings has more than doubled since 2016. The Chinese currency accounted for about 2.8% of reserves as of September 2022.&nbsp;







<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full is-resized"><img src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230330-article2-2.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-62113" width="852" height="399"/></figure>











<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Russia Diversifying Away From The Dollar By Loading Up On Gold</h3>



It’s not all about the yuan, of course. Gold has also increased as a foreign reserve, especially among emerging economies that seek to diversify away from the dollar.



Last week, Russia announced that its bullion holdings jumped by approximately 1 million ounces over the past 12 months as its central bank loaded up on gold in the face of Western sanctions. The bank reported having nearly 75 million ounces at the end of February 2023, up from about 74 million a year earlier.







<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full is-resized"><img src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230330-article203.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-62114" width="844" height="376"/></figure>







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Long-Term Implications For Investors</h3>



The implications of the dollar potentially losing its status as the global reserve are numerous. Obviously, there may be currency risks, and a decrease in demand for U.S. Treasury bonds could result in rising interest rates. I would expect to see massive swings in commodity prices, especially oil prices, which could be an opportunity if you can stomach the volatility.



Gold would look exceptionally attractive, I think. A significant decrease in the relative value of the dollar would be supportive of the gold price, and I would be surprised not to see new highs. It’s for reasons like these that I always recommend a 10% weighting in gold, with 5% in physical bullion and the other 5% in high-quality gold mining equities. Be sure to rebalance at least on an annual basis.











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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Petrodollar Dusk, Petroyuan Dawn: What Investors Need To Know</h2>







While most investors were trying to gauge the Federal Reserve’s next moves in light of recent bank failures last week, something interesting happened in Moscow.



During a three-day state visit, Chinese President Xi Jinping held friendly talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a show of unity, as both countries increasingly seek to position themselves as leaders of what they call a “multipolar world order,” one that challenges U.S.-centric alliances and agreements.



Among those agreements is the petrodollar, which has been in place for over 50 years.&nbsp;



In case you’re wondering, “petrodollars” are not a real currency. They’re simply dollars being used to trade oil. Early in the 1970s, the U.S. government provided economic aid to Saudi Arabia, its chief oil-producing rival, in exchange for assurances that Riyadh would price its crude exports exclusively in the U.S. dollar. In 1975, other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) followed suit, and the petrodollar was born.



This had the immediate effect of strengthening the U.S. dollar. Since countries around the world had to have dollars on hand in order to buy oil (and other key commodities such as gold, also priced in dollars), the greenback became the world’s reserve currency, a status formerly enjoyed by the British pound, French franc and Dutch guilder.



All things must come to an end, however. We may be witnessing the end of the petrodollar as more and more countries, including China and Russia, are agreeing to make settlements in currencies other than the U.S. dollar. This could have wide-ranging implications on not just a macro scale but also investment portfolios.







This article was republished with permission from<a href="https://www.usfunds.com/resource-listing/?resource-type=frank-talk"> Frank Talk</a>, a CEO Blog by Frank Holmes of <a href="https://www.usfunds.com/">U.S. Global Investors</a> (<a href="https://www.channelchek.com/company/grow">GROW</a>). Find more of Frank’s articles <a href="https://www.usfunds.com/about/">here</a> – Originally published March 27, 2023







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Dawn For The Petroyuan?</h3>



Putin couldn’t have been more explicit. During Xi’s state visit, he named the Chinese yuan as his favored currency to conduct trade in. Ever since Western sanctions were levied on the Eastern European country for its invasion of Ukraine early last year, Russia has increasingly depended on its southern neighbor to buy the oil other countries won’t touch.&nbsp;



In just the first two months of 2023, China’s imports from Russia totaled $9.3 billion, exceeding full-year 2022 imports in dollar terms. In February alone, China imported over 2 million barrels of Russian crude, a new record high.






<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full is-resized"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230330-article2-1.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-62112" width="838" height="416" srcset="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230330-article2-1.jpg 652w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230330-article2-1-300x149.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 838px) 100vw, 838px" /></figure></div>






Except that now, the yuan is presumably being used to make these settlements.



As Zoltar Pozsar, New York-based economist and investment research director at Credit Suisse, put it recently: “That’s dusk for the petrodollar… and dawn for the petroyuan.”







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">U.S. Dollar Still The World’s Reserve Currency, But Its Dominance Is Slipping</h3>



Before you dismiss Pozsar’s comment as an exaggeration, consider that other major OPEC nations and BRICS members (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are either accepting yuan already or strongly considering it. Russia, Iran and Venezuela account for about 40% of the world’s proven oilfields, and the three sell their oil in exchange for yuan. Turkey, Argentina, Indonesia and heavyweight oil producer Saudi Arabia have all applied for admittance into BRICS, while Egypt became a new member this week.



What this suggests is that the yuan’s role as a reserve currency will continue to strengthen, signifying a broader shift in the global power balance and potentially giving China a bigger hand with which to shape economic policies that affect us all.



To be clear, the U.S. dollar remains the world’s top reserve currency for now, though its share of global central banks’ official holdings has slipped in the past 20 years, from 72% in 2001 to just under 60% today. By contrast, the yuan’s share of official holdings has more than doubled since 2016. The Chinese currency accounted for about 2.8% of reserves as of September 2022.&nbsp;






<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full is-resized"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230330-article2-2.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-62113" width="852" height="399" srcset="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230330-article2-2.jpg 624w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230330-article2-2-300x140.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 852px) 100vw, 852px" /></figure></div>










<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Russia Diversifying Away From The Dollar By Loading Up On Gold</h3>



It’s not all about the yuan, of course. Gold has also increased as a foreign reserve, especially among emerging economies that seek to diversify away from the dollar.



Last week, Russia announced that its bullion holdings jumped by approximately 1 million ounces over the past 12 months as its central bank loaded up on gold in the face of Western sanctions. The bank reported having nearly 75 million ounces at the end of February 2023, up from about 74 million a year earlier.






<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full is-resized"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230330-article203.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-62114" width="844" height="376" srcset="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230330-article203.jpg 624w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230330-article203-300x134.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 844px) 100vw, 844px" /></figure></div>






<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Long-Term Implications For Investors</h3>



The implications of the dollar potentially losing its status as the global reserve are numerous. Obviously, there may be currency risks, and a decrease in demand for U.S. Treasury bonds could result in rising interest rates. I would expect to see massive swings in commodity prices, especially oil prices, which could be an opportunity if you can stomach the volatility.



Gold would look exceptionally attractive, I think. A significant decrease in the relative value of the dollar would be supportive of the gold price, and I would be surprised not to see new highs. It’s for reasons like these that I always recommend a 10% weighting in gold, with 5% in physical bullion and the other 5% in high-quality gold mining equities. Be sure to rebalance at least on an annual basis.











All opinions expressed and data provided are subject to change without notice. Some of these opinions may not be appropriate to every investor. By clicking the link(s) above, you will be directed to a third-party website(s). U.S. Global Investors does not endorse all information supplied by this/these website(s) and is not responsible for its/their content.

Petrodollar Dusk, Petroyuan Dawn: What Investors Need To Know







While most investors were trying to gauge the Federal Reserve’s next moves in light of recent bank failures last week, something interesting happened in Moscow.



During a three-day state visit, Chinese President Xi Jinping held friendly talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a show of unity, as both countries increasingly seek to position themselves as leaders of what they call a “multipolar world order,” one that challenges U.S.-centric alliances and agreements.



Among those agreements is the petrodollar, which has been in place for over 50 years.&nbsp;



In case you’re wondering, “petrodollars” are not a real currency. They’re simply dollars being used to trade oil. Early in the 1970s, the U.S. government provided economic aid to Saudi Arabia, its chief oil-producing rival, in exchange for assurances that Riyadh would price its crude exports exclusively in the U.S. dollar. In 1975, other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) followed suit, and the petrodollar was born.



This had the immediate effect of strengthening the U.S. dollar. Since countries around the world had to have dollars on hand in order to buy oil (and other key commodities such as gold, also priced in dollars), the greenback became the world’s reserve currency, a status formerly enjoyed by the British pound, French franc and Dutch guilder.



All things must come to an end, however. We may be witnessing the end of the petrodollar as more and more countries, including China and Russia, are agreeing to make settlements in currencies other than the U.S. dollar. This could have wide-ranging implications on not just a macro scale but also investment portfolios.







This article was republished with permission from Frank Talk, a CEO Blog by Frank Holmes of U.S. Global Investors (GROW). Find more of Frank’s articles here – Originally published March 27, 2023







Dawn For The Petroyuan?



Putin couldn’t have been more explicit. During Xi’s state visit, he named the Chinese yuan as his favored currency to conduct trade in. Ever since Western sanctions were levied on the Eastern European country for its invasion of Ukraine early last year, Russia has increasingly depended on its southern neighbor to buy the oil other countries won’t touch.&nbsp;



In just the first two months of 2023, China’s imports from Russia totaled $9.3 billion, exceeding full-year 2022 imports in dollar terms. In February alone, China imported over 2 million barrels of Russian crude, a new record high.














Except that now, the yuan is presumably being used to make these settlements.



As Zoltar Pozsar, New York-based economist and investment research director at Credit Suisse, put it recently: “That’s dusk for the petrodollar… and dawn for the petroyuan.”







U.S. Dollar Still The World’s Reserve Currency, But Its Dominance Is Slipping



Before you dismiss Pozsar’s comment as an exaggeration, consider that other major OPEC nations and BRICS members (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are either accepting yuan already or strongly considering it. Russia, Iran and Venezuela account for about 40% of the world’s proven oilfields, and the three sell their oil in exchange for yuan. Turkey, Argentina, Indonesia and heavyweight oil producer Saudi Arabia have all applied for admittance into BRICS, while Egypt became a new member this week.



What this suggests is that the yuan’s role as a reserve currency will continue to strengthen, signifying a broader shift in the global power balance and potentially giving China a bigger hand with which to shape economic policies that affect us all.



To be clear, the U.S. dollar remains the world’s top reserve currency for now, though its share of global central banks’ official holdings has slipped in the past 20 years, from 72% in 2001 to just under 60% today. By contrast, the yuan’s share of official holdings has more than doubled since 2016. The Chinese currency accounted for about 2.8% of reserves as of September 2022.&nbsp;


















Russia Diversifying Away From The Dollar By Loading Up On Gold



It’s not all about the yuan, of course. Gold has also increased as a foreign reserve, especially among emerging economies that seek to diversify away from the dollar.



Last week, Russia announced that its bullion holdings jumped by approximately 1 million ounces over the past 12 months as its central bank loaded up on gold in the face of Western sanctions. The bank reported having nearly 75 million ounces at the end of February 2023, up from about 74 million a year earlier.














Long-Term Implications For Investors



The implications of the dollar potentially losing its status as the global reserve are numerous. Obviously, there may be currency risks, and a decrease in demand for U.S. Treasury bonds could result in rising interest rates. I would expect to see massive swings in commodity prices, especially oil prices, which could be an opportunity if you can stomach the volatility.



Gold would look exceptionally attractive, I think. A significant decrease in the relative value of the dollar would be supportive of the gold price, and I would be surprised not to see new highs. It’s for reasons like these that I always recommend a 10% weighting in gold, with 5% in physical bullion and the other 5% in high-quality gold mining equities. Be sure to rebalance at least on an annual basis.











All opinions expressed and data provided are subject to change without notice. Some of these opinions may not be appropriate to every investor. By clicking the link(s) above, you will be directed to a third-party website(s). U.S. Global Investors does not endorse all information supplied by this/these website(s) and is not responsible for its/their content.

Gold in the Face of a Multipolar World Order

Dollar

Gold

Republish

<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full"><img src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/cc-news-generic-burry-663.png" alt="" class="wp-image-62097"/></figure>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Michael Burry’s New Comments Highlight the Importance of Pivoting</h3>







With most major indexes in positive territory for the year but still, well below their 2022 starting point, are markets moving to make up their losses? Michael Burry thinks so. In the most positive tweet I have seen from him in almost four years, Burry posted he was “wrong to say sell.” As recently as late January, Burry posted a one-word tweet, “Sell.” The pundits read into it that perhaps another economic crisis similar to the one that occurred in 2008 will crush markets. His almost cult-like following was built by being one of the few individuals who correctly positioned his investments for the housing and subprime mortgage problems that shook the U.S. in late 2008.







<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full"><img src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230330-article1-1.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-62099"/></figure>







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Michael Burry Suggests We Have a Bull Market</h3>



Market participants are surprised at both Burry’s bullishness and open acknowledgment that he believes he was overly negative and has gotten it wrong this time. The widely followed investor has been bearish and broadcasting this sentiment to his 1.4 million Twitter followers. The suggestions have been that they should consider lightening their holdings. Burry even caught investor attention with his own 13F reported short position in Apple (AAPL).



Burry points to high levels of dip buying, which may have changed today’s market landscape. This is backed up by other reports, including one from Bloomberg that gives a reason that 2023 is shaping up to be one of the best years for dip-buyers.







<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full"><img src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230330-article1-2.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-62100"/></figure>







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Importance of Pivoting</h3>



He may not have been "wrong." The best investors understand their time frame and will recognize when market moves are not as expected. On February 2nd, a few days after Burry’s January 31st “sell” tweet, the S&amp;P 500 index closed at 4,180 just after the Fed interest rate target increased by 25 basis points. To date, that is the large-cap index’s highest close of 2023, as weeks of declines followed. The NDX  had fallen nearly 3% since that day.



But the trend, if it continues, appears to have changed. The equity market in March has been surprisingly resilient. It has been able to shrug off multi-country concerns surrounding the banks, elevated expectations of an economic downturn, and forecasts that S&amp;P 500 companies will report their biggest quarterly earnings decline since the second quarter of 2020.



Moving from a sell to a more bullish position, for those that are looking to capture short-term moves, seems to be what is implied in his tweet. It may be that Michael Burry was not wrong in direction, as the markets did fall, just wrong in how long they would stay weak.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Take Away</h3>



There are long-term trends and short-term trends. Also, trends that are weak and strong through different sectors at the same time. While time will tell if Burry is correct in his most recent direction, the ability to see market sentiment changing and go with it is characteristic of a successful trader.



<a href="mailto:phoffman@channelchek.com">Paul Hoffman</a>



Managing Editor, Channelchek







Sources



<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-30/should-i-buy-the-dip-michael-burry-of-big-short-fame-congratulates-dip-buyers#xj4y7vzkg">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-30/should-i-buy-the-dip-michael-burry-of-big-short-fame-congratulates-dip-buyers#xj4y7vzkg</a>



<a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/michael-burry-of-big-short-fame-says-he-was-wrong-to-tell-investors-to-sell-d1259c0f">https://www.marketwatch.com/story/michael-burry-of-big-short-fame-says-he-was-wrong-to-tell-investors-to-sell-d1259c0f</a>

<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="663" height="371" src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/cc-news-generic-burry-663.png" alt="" class="wp-image-62097" srcset="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/cc-news-generic-burry-663.png 663w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/cc-news-generic-burry-663-300x168.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 663px) 100vw, 663px" /></figure></div>


<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Michael Burry’s New Comments Highlight the Importance of Pivoting</h3>







With most major indexes in positive territory for the year but still, well below their 2022 starting point, are markets moving to make up their losses? Michael Burry thinks so. In the most positive tweet I have seen from him in almost four years, Burry posted he was “wrong to say sell.” As recently as late January, Burry posted a one-word tweet, “Sell.” The pundits read into it that perhaps another economic crisis similar to the one that occurred in 2008 will crush markets. His almost cult-like following was built by being one of the few individuals who correctly positioned his investments for the housing and subprime mortgage problems that shook the U.S. in late 2008.






<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="670" height="122" src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230330-article1-1.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-62099" srcset="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230330-article1-1.jpg 670w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230330-article1-1-300x55.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 670px) 100vw, 670px" /></figure></div>






<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Michael Burry Suggests We Have a Bull Market</h3>



Market participants are surprised at both Burry’s bullishness and open acknowledgment that he believes he was overly negative and has gotten it wrong this time. The widely followed investor has been bearish and broadcasting this sentiment to his 1.4 million Twitter followers. The suggestions have been that they should consider lightening their holdings. Burry even caught investor attention with his own 13F reported short position in Apple (AAPL).



Burry points to high levels of dip buying, which may have changed today’s market landscape. This is backed up by other reports, including one from Bloomberg that gives a reason that 2023 is shaping up to be one of the best years for dip-buyers.






<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="698" height="467" src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230330-article1-2.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-62100" srcset="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230330-article1-2.jpg 698w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230330-article1-2-300x201.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 698px) 100vw, 698px" /></figure></div>






<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Importance of Pivoting</h3>



He may not have been &#8220;wrong.&#8221; The best investors understand their time frame and will recognize when market moves are not as expected. On February 2nd, a few days after Burry’s January 31st “sell” tweet, the S&amp;P 500 index closed at 4,180 just after the Fed interest rate target increased by 25 basis points. To date, that is the large-cap index’s highest close of 2023, as weeks of declines followed. The NDX  had fallen nearly 3% since that day.



But the trend, if it continues, appears to have changed. The equity market in March has been surprisingly resilient. It has been able to shrug off multi-country concerns surrounding the banks, elevated expectations of an economic downturn, and forecasts that S&amp;P 500 companies will report their biggest quarterly earnings decline since the second quarter of 2020.



Moving from a sell to a more bullish position, for those that are looking to capture short-term moves, seems to be what is implied in his tweet. It may be that Michael Burry was not wrong in direction, as the markets did fall, just wrong in how long they would stay weak.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Take Away</h3>



There are long-term trends and short-term trends. Also, trends that are weak and strong through different sectors at the same time. While time will tell if Burry is correct in his most recent direction, the ability to see market sentiment changing and go with it is characteristic of a successful trader.



<a href="mailto:phoffman@channelchek.com">Paul Hoffman</a>



Managing Editor, Channelchek







Sources



<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-30/should-i-buy-the-dip-michael-burry-of-big-short-fame-congratulates-dip-buyers#xj4y7vzkg">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-30/should-i-buy-the-dip-michael-burry-of-big-short-fame-congratulates-dip-buyers#xj4y7vzkg</a>



<a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/michael-burry-of-big-short-fame-says-he-was-wrong-to-tell-investors-to-sell-d1259c0f">https://www.marketwatch.com/story/michael-burry-of-big-short-fame-says-he-was-wrong-to-tell-investors-to-sell-d1259c0f</a>

Michael Burry’s New Comments Highlight the Importance of Pivoting







With most major indexes in positive territory for the year but still, well below their 2022 starting point, are markets moving to make up their losses? Michael Burry thinks so. In the most positive tweet I have seen from him in almost four years, Burry posted he was “wrong to say sell.” As recently as late January, Burry posted a one-word tweet, “Sell.” The pundits read into it that perhaps another economic crisis similar to the one that occurred in 2008 will crush markets. His almost cult-like following was built by being one of the few individuals who correctly positioned his investments for the housing and subprime mortgage problems that shook the U.S. in late 2008.














Michael Burry Suggests We Have a Bull Market



Market participants are surprised at both Burry’s bullishness and open acknowledgment that he believes he was overly negative and has gotten it wrong this time. The widely followed investor has been bearish and broadcasting this sentiment to his 1.4 million Twitter followers. The suggestions have been that they should consider lightening their holdings. Burry even caught investor attention with his own 13F reported short position in Apple (AAPL).



Burry points to high levels of dip buying, which may have changed today’s market landscape. This is backed up by other reports, including one from Bloomberg that gives a reason that 2023 is shaping up to be one of the best years for dip-buyers.














Importance of Pivoting



He may not have been &#8220;wrong.&#8221; The best investors understand their time frame and will recognize when market moves are not as expected. On February 2nd, a few days after Burry’s January 31st “sell” tweet, the S&amp;P 500 index closed at 4,180 just after the Fed interest rate target increased by 25 basis points. To date, that is the large-cap index’s highest close of 2023, as weeks of declines followed. The NDX  had fallen nearly 3% since that day.



But the trend, if it continues, appears to have changed. The equity market in March has been surprisingly resilient. It has been able to shrug off multi-country concerns surrounding the banks, elevated expectations of an economic downturn, and forecasts that S&amp;P 500 companies will report their biggest quarterly earnings decline since the second quarter of 2020.



Moving from a sell to a more bullish position, for those that are looking to capture short-term moves, seems to be what is implied in his tweet. It may be that Michael Burry was not wrong in direction, as the markets did fall, just wrong in how long they would stay weak.







Take Away



There are long-term trends and short-term trends. Also, trends that are weak and strong through different sectors at the same time. While time will tell if Burry is correct in his most recent direction, the ability to see market sentiment changing and go with it is characteristic of a successful trader.



Paul Hoffman



Managing Editor, Channelchek







Sources



https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-30/should-i-buy-the-dip-michael-burry-of-big-short-fame-congratulates-dip-buyers#xj4y7vzkg



https://www.marketwatch.com/story/michael-burry-of-big-short-fame-says-he-was-wrong-to-tell-investors-to-sell-d1259c0f

Michael Burry Suggests He is Now Bullish

Bullish

Burry

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----------







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Noble Capital Markets Annual Investor Conference – NobleCon – to be held at Florida Atlantic University December 3-5</h3>







Boca Raton, FL,&nbsp;March 1, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In a joint statement, Noble Capital Markets, Inc. (“Noble”) and Florida Atlantic University announced today that NobleCon19 – Noble’s 19th&nbsp;Annual Small Cap Investor Conference – will be&nbsp;held at the University’s College of Business Executive Education facility, Dec.&nbsp;3-5, 2023, in Boca Raton, Florida. The 52,000 square foot, state-of-the-art facility was opened August 2020.&nbsp;



Noble has worked with the University for over a decade and was instrumental in the development of their Financial Analyst Program, and Noble’s Intern Program&nbsp;has generated great assets&nbsp;with graduates from the University. “We are extremely proud of our long-standing relationship with Florida Atlantic University,” said Nico Pronk, Noble’s President &amp; CEO. “This&nbsp;new collaboration&nbsp;certainly elevates it to a whole new level.”



Vegar Wiik, Executive Director of the College of Business, Executive Education agrees, stating “Our vision for the College and this magnificent structure is to effectively integrate our curriculum with established businesses. Daniel Gropper, dean of FAU’s College of Business, said the financial industry is an important, integral part of the economy. “I can’t think of a better way to expose our students to the importance of emerging growth companies than to have 100 plus executive teams in the halls of our campus,”&nbsp;he said.



The entire College of Business&nbsp;Executive Education&nbsp;facility will transform into NobleCon19. Each presentation room will accommodate investors, in tiered seating with personal monitors. High-definition cameras, full-room microphones (to capture audience questions), three large screens, and full webcasting capabilities will offer the most technologically advanced conference environment on the circuit. Attendees will also experience similarly equipped rooms for panel presentations, private breakouts, and meetings, and in large gathering spaces, both indoors and out, as well as 800 free covered parking spaces. Florida Atlantic University is centrally located in Boca Raton, off I-95, only minutes from the Boca Raton Airport, and less than half an hour from Fort Lauderdale International Airport. Privaira, located at Boca Raton Airport is the official private air charter company for NobleCon19. A wide range of hotel accommodations are available within a five-mile radius, from economy to the ultra-luxurious “The Boca Raton.” Noble will be working with several properties to offer NobleCon19 attendees discounted rates.



The format of NobleCon will include company presentations followed by fire-side chats with Noble analysts, and select one-on-one meetings for qualified investors only, as well as several industry panel presentations. On the networking side, Noble is planning for informative keynote speakers and live entertainment, in an effort expand the business day in a more casual, conversational environment. All company presentations and panel discussions will be digitally streamed and made available exclusively on&nbsp;<a href="https://url.emailprotection.link/?bNlrZdZdX2BOZepcYSYpik3UHxBtkl6fQEImxyRchttqdmTaYRvLc0gymcB2qWYM7AOY9ej8EkJ3C2dqtI8znuVeBqAc7_Ez0GftUl26zhAFnL27PJmAmBM-kfQcQa48JHVVCu7OEbcw9vAypofZljl9xWjCGIIVllZryj6BalE5Pmzsuvhn_sSfr3DMlL0-36N5w2jU5P7EN63G2llzHBEQ3xSEDnvK_rhZ_0b8qh9Gben47YZtLZi4kzk7VVN_MNVGW6Us8spbOPDVcNgocRi3ztUYVK6G2w1fwtRHnBvFUzMoyB_Iev7ezztEFCznh9EPju_mfhnvDBGlmOeljh0Zia4gKVlfl4u5BjkhLQmjpsaz0x4FnaiL9_h1fxX6a7zQGspdBkQ1W_fAIcArFrO88bOv5I1zMtoqkBTEkL6AXCKrOE0FvK5s_vwBBe5lPcUI9NuPt9TCtXAJ63K3gPQ~~">www.channelchek.com</a>&nbsp;– Noble’s proprietary investment community portal.



Who should attend? Public companies from any business sector with market capitalizations of below $3-4 billion. Private companies planning a capital raise, considering becoming public, or an M&amp;A event. NobleCon19 will suit every level of investor; high net worth individuals, family offices, self-directed investors, private equity, RIAs, financial advisors, equity analysts, and institutional investors. <a href="https://url.emailprotection.link/?brF1a4NGIB-AzFtYeoF7S-D357mwbFzeRh8BZ0MaZk0lwCpwN4KCsgrdAsOcgdHtg2JdBzvW1_fOZOnSUr99Mb82e1tUGwqF_EWNrkYTQVluCpVNF9abcNWq-cvz6nGV4gaeZZjJulL1MFzhIjTdNLPyQoeFqfip-BFDwwJdRdzJz8kJMaeqnrIroY9JjJOk-zGfBCgFWE-XcS3ELeYu03bx41uLM_xth5IqnAf0SVvLqwcnHKN4mRyWz62l3elTZ0ZXk64sUtYyxwS-7ID2R8tgZFyj7B2hLgSbPHZVG_uUaLJzq_Sk0plomJy5IGuMIztcHmMvD1b8p7jaMRfPgAp-B7L5B6CpTtsqJ-EQ2HYqF0QbqDMVuTlGU2DWWQADRUFZDMsJ1Le8jf8IbS6gWYLMswN0M-zvzNJqIpayTWc-TIdDL8_2RMaX2oqpRdF3S2m-DcJI-BRnWX9dxvIxxog~~">www.NobleCon19.com</a>



About Florida Atlantic University



Florida Atlantic University, established in 1961, officially opened its doors in 1964 as the fifth public university in Florida. Today, the University serves more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students across six campuses located along the southeast Florida coast. In recent years, the University has doubled its research expenditures and outpaced its peers in student achievement rates. Through the coexistence of access and excellence, FAU embodies an innovative model where traditional achievement gaps vanish. FAU is designated a Hispanic-serving institution, ranked as a top public university by U.S. News &amp; World Report and a High Research Activity institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. For more information, visit <a href="https://url.emailprotection.link/?bON-NWRAGW8WK1_p_9AAaEZbZxzAzVkbJ4_dyrQSJDfaC40lOuXBrS3B5E8tg7RBCD-P1YwI9FHYJftAyezTrLQ~~">www.fau.edu</a>.



About Noble Capital Markets



Noble Capital Markets, Inc. was incorporated in 1984 as a full-service SEC / FINRA registered broker-dealer, dedicated exclusively to serving underfollowed emerging growth companies through investment banking, wealth management, trading &amp; execution, and equity research activities. Over the past 39 years, Noble has raised billions of dollars for companies and published more than 45,000 equity research reports. <a href="https://url.emailprotection.link/?bHGyQjJUl0wmz99k5P0bHI2d0PKkwvSHlqhtoIgD7xrikJt2jSiVSDPP_VFmDyXrKxevZ61087mgqubc3ioL-1yRm5Z__-xxiinz8IsDy5FxVvH-06HUCmRx2tXyRvIgCo7jdQ_4QZLkHpcnrYxry4BbEXwmPHP1mFEx29h3PEvkMEUZNeeISPEOKAbukeTdO3IQ6YeirB1bscDATsLF1AgyBZf43VWspfkrFVufn8558VJbcXnvDBd2aGmIl1ZhYRajibVdaJ066c5CTn6U3gVcqC760dTCD2rss7__VkOQ-VHYggHNh28yyfX0qav8boYf03vq9uOnZ2BGHEJY6uXI1m91tSjlXR0aOaU1E4GE3ckgiftfsW60I75fGNq_-KIar_MwvexwVCAhUm6krbJYxiGLx3xCHoCQGbz-8950GB5pUdkDPsH3xYLzX7lEFh9NvR587K3WVl2WutxfHCQ~~">www.noblecapitalmarkets.com</a> &nbsp;<a href="mailto:contact@noblecapitalmarkets.com">contact@noblecapitalmarkets.com</a>

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&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Noble Capital Markets Annual Investor Conference – NobleCon – to be held at Florida Atlantic University December 3-5</h3>







Boca Raton, FL,&nbsp;March 1, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) &#8212; In a joint statement, Noble Capital Markets, Inc. (“Noble”) and Florida Atlantic University announced today that NobleCon19 – Noble’s 19th&nbsp;Annual Small Cap Investor Conference – will be&nbsp;held at the University’s College of Business Executive Education facility, Dec.&nbsp;3-5, 2023, in Boca Raton, Florida. The 52,000 square foot, state-of-the-art facility was opened August 2020.&nbsp;



Noble has worked with the University for over a decade and was instrumental in the development of their Financial Analyst Program, and Noble’s Intern Program&nbsp;has generated great assets&nbsp;with graduates from the University. “We are extremely proud of our long-standing relationship with Florida Atlantic University,” said Nico Pronk, Noble’s President &amp; CEO. “This&nbsp;new collaboration&nbsp;certainly elevates it to a whole new level.”



Vegar Wiik, Executive Director of the College of Business, Executive Education agrees, stating “Our vision for the College and this magnificent structure is to effectively integrate our curriculum with established businesses. Daniel Gropper, dean of FAU’s College of Business, said the financial industry is an important, integral part of the economy. “I can’t think of a better way to expose our students to the importance of emerging growth companies than to have 100 plus executive teams in the halls of our campus,”&nbsp;he said.



The entire College of Business&nbsp;Executive Education&nbsp;facility will transform into NobleCon19. Each presentation room will accommodate investors, in tiered seating with personal monitors. High-definition cameras, full-room microphones (to capture audience questions), three large screens, and full webcasting capabilities will offer the most technologically advanced conference environment on the circuit. Attendees will also experience similarly equipped rooms for panel presentations, private breakouts, and meetings, and in large gathering spaces, both indoors and out, as well as 800 free covered parking spaces. Florida Atlantic University is centrally located in Boca Raton, off I-95, only minutes from the Boca Raton Airport, and less than half an hour from Fort Lauderdale International Airport. Privaira, located at Boca Raton Airport is the official private air charter company for NobleCon19. A wide range of hotel accommodations are available within a five-mile radius, from economy to the ultra-luxurious “The Boca Raton.” Noble will be working with several properties to offer NobleCon19 attendees discounted rates.



The format of NobleCon will include company presentations followed by fire-side chats with Noble analysts, and select one-on-one meetings for qualified investors only, as well as several industry panel presentations. On the networking side, Noble is planning for informative keynote speakers and live entertainment, in an effort expand the business day in a more casual, conversational environment. All company presentations and panel discussions will be digitally streamed and made available exclusively on&nbsp;<a href="https://url.emailprotection.link/?bNlrZdZdX2BOZepcYSYpik3UHxBtkl6fQEImxyRchttqdmTaYRvLc0gymcB2qWYM7AOY9ej8EkJ3C2dqtI8znuVeBqAc7_Ez0GftUl26zhAFnL27PJmAmBM-kfQcQa48JHVVCu7OEbcw9vAypofZljl9xWjCGIIVllZryj6BalE5Pmzsuvhn_sSfr3DMlL0-36N5w2jU5P7EN63G2llzHBEQ3xSEDnvK_rhZ_0b8qh9Gben47YZtLZi4kzk7VVN_MNVGW6Us8spbOPDVcNgocRi3ztUYVK6G2w1fwtRHnBvFUzMoyB_Iev7ezztEFCznh9EPju_mfhnvDBGlmOeljh0Zia4gKVlfl4u5BjkhLQmjpsaz0x4FnaiL9_h1fxX6a7zQGspdBkQ1W_fAIcArFrO88bOv5I1zMtoqkBTEkL6AXCKrOE0FvK5s_vwBBe5lPcUI9NuPt9TCtXAJ63K3gPQ~~">www.channelchek.com</a>&nbsp;– Noble’s proprietary investment community portal.



Who should attend? Public companies from any business sector with market capitalizations of below $3-4 billion. Private companies planning a capital raise, considering becoming public, or an M&amp;A event. NobleCon19 will suit every level of investor; high net worth individuals, family offices, self-directed investors, private equity, RIAs, financial advisors, equity analysts, and institutional investors. <a href="https://url.emailprotection.link/?brF1a4NGIB-AzFtYeoF7S-D357mwbFzeRh8BZ0MaZk0lwCpwN4KCsgrdAsOcgdHtg2JdBzvW1_fOZOnSUr99Mb82e1tUGwqF_EWNrkYTQVluCpVNF9abcNWq-cvz6nGV4gaeZZjJulL1MFzhIjTdNLPyQoeFqfip-BFDwwJdRdzJz8kJMaeqnrIroY9JjJOk-zGfBCgFWE-XcS3ELeYu03bx41uLM_xth5IqnAf0SVvLqwcnHKN4mRyWz62l3elTZ0ZXk64sUtYyxwS-7ID2R8tgZFyj7B2hLgSbPHZVG_uUaLJzq_Sk0plomJy5IGuMIztcHmMvD1b8p7jaMRfPgAp-B7L5B6CpTtsqJ-EQ2HYqF0QbqDMVuTlGU2DWWQADRUFZDMsJ1Le8jf8IbS6gWYLMswN0M-zvzNJqIpayTWc-TIdDL8_2RMaX2oqpRdF3S2m-DcJI-BRnWX9dxvIxxog~~">www.NobleCon19.com</a>



About Florida Atlantic University



Florida Atlantic University, established in 1961, officially opened its doors in 1964 as the fifth public university in Florida. Today, the University serves more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students across six campuses located along the southeast Florida coast. In recent years, the University has doubled its research expenditures and outpaced its peers in student achievement rates. Through the coexistence of access and excellence, FAU embodies an innovative model where traditional achievement gaps vanish. FAU is designated a Hispanic-serving institution, ranked as a top public university by U.S. News &amp; World Report and a High Research Activity institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. For more information, visit <a href="https://url.emailprotection.link/?bON-NWRAGW8WK1_p_9AAaEZbZxzAzVkbJ4_dyrQSJDfaC40lOuXBrS3B5E8tg7RBCD-P1YwI9FHYJftAyezTrLQ~~">www.fau.edu</a>.



About Noble Capital Markets



Noble Capital Markets, Inc. was incorporated in 1984 as a full-service SEC / FINRA registered broker-dealer, dedicated exclusively to serving underfollowed emerging growth companies through investment banking, wealth management, trading &amp; execution, and equity research activities. Over the past 39 years, Noble has raised billions of dollars for companies and published more than 45,000 equity research reports. <a href="https://url.emailprotection.link/?bHGyQjJUl0wmz99k5P0bHI2d0PKkwvSHlqhtoIgD7xrikJt2jSiVSDPP_VFmDyXrKxevZ61087mgqubc3ioL-1yRm5Z__-xxiinz8IsDy5FxVvH-06HUCmRx2tXyRvIgCo7jdQ_4QZLkHpcnrYxry4BbEXwmPHP1mFEx29h3PEvkMEUZNeeISPEOKAbukeTdO3IQ6YeirB1bscDATsLF1AgyBZf43VWspfkrFVufn8558VJbcXnvDBd2aGmIl1ZhYRajibVdaJ066c5CTn6U3gVcqC760dTCD2rss7__VkOQ-VHYggHNh28yyfX0qav8boYf03vq9uOnZ2BGHEJY6uXI1m91tSjlXR0aOaU1E4GE3ckgiftfsW60I75fGNq_-KIar_MwvexwVCAhUm6krbJYxiGLx3xCHoCQGbz-8950GB5pUdkDPsH3xYLzX7lEFh9NvR587K3WVl2WutxfHCQ~~">www.noblecapitalmarkets.com</a> &nbsp;<a href="mailto:contact@noblecapitalmarkets.com">contact@noblecapitalmarkets.com</a>

&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-







Noble Capital Markets Annual Investor Conference – NobleCon – to be held at Florida Atlantic University December 3-5







Boca Raton, FL,&nbsp;March 1, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) &#8212; In a joint statement, Noble Capital Markets, Inc. (“Noble”) and Florida Atlantic University announced today that NobleCon19 – Noble’s 19th&nbsp;Annual Small Cap Investor Conference – will be&nbsp;held at the University’s College of Business Executive Education facility, Dec.&nbsp;3-5, 2023, in Boca Raton, Florida. The 52,000 square foot, state-of-the-art facility was opened August 2020.&nbsp;



Noble has worked with the University for over a decade and was instrumental in the development of their Financial Analyst Program, and Noble’s Intern Program&nbsp;has generated great assets&nbsp;with graduates from the University. “We are extremely proud of our long-standing relationship with Florida Atlantic University,” said Nico Pronk, Noble’s President &amp; CEO. “This&nbsp;new collaboration&nbsp;certainly elevates it to a whole new level.”



Vegar Wiik, Executive Director of the College of Business, Executive Education agrees, stating “Our vision for the College and this magnificent structure is to effectively integrate our curriculum with established businesses. Daniel Gropper, dean of FAU’s College of Business, said the financial industry is an important, integral part of the economy. “I can’t think of a better way to expose our students to the importance of emerging growth companies than to have 100 plus executive teams in the halls of our campus,”&nbsp;he said.



The entire College of Business&nbsp;Executive Education&nbsp;facility will transform into NobleCon19. Each presentation room will accommodate investors, in tiered seating with personal monitors. High-definition cameras, full-room microphones (to capture audience questions), three large screens, and full webcasting capabilities will offer the most technologically advanced conference environment on the circuit. Attendees will also experience similarly equipped rooms for panel presentations, private breakouts, and meetings, and in large gathering spaces, both indoors and out, as well as 800 free covered parking spaces. Florida Atlantic University is centrally located in Boca Raton, off I-95, only minutes from the Boca Raton Airport, and less than half an hour from Fort Lauderdale International Airport. Privaira, located at Boca Raton Airport is the official private air charter company for NobleCon19. A wide range of hotel accommodations are available within a five-mile radius, from economy to the ultra-luxurious “The Boca Raton.” Noble will be working with several properties to offer NobleCon19 attendees discounted rates.



The format of NobleCon will include company presentations followed by fire-side chats with Noble analysts, and select one-on-one meetings for qualified investors only, as well as several industry panel presentations. On the networking side, Noble is planning for informative keynote speakers and live entertainment, in an effort expand the business day in a more casual, conversational environment. All company presentations and panel discussions will be digitally streamed and made available exclusively on&nbsp;www.channelchek.com&nbsp;– Noble’s proprietary investment community portal.



Who should attend? Public companies from any business sector with market capitalizations of below $3-4 billion. Private companies planning a capital raise, considering becoming public, or an M&amp;A event. NobleCon19 will suit every level of investor; high net worth individuals, family offices, self-directed investors, private equity, RIAs, financial advisors, equity analysts, and institutional investors. www.NobleCon19.com



About Florida Atlantic University



Florida Atlantic University, established in 1961, officially opened its doors in 1964 as the fifth public university in Florida. Today, the University serves more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students across six campuses located along the southeast Florida coast. In recent years, the University has doubled its research expenditures and outpaced its peers in student achievement rates. Through the coexistence of access and excellence, FAU embodies an innovative model where traditional achievement gaps vanish. FAU is designated a Hispanic-serving institution, ranked as a top public university by U.S. News &amp; World Report and a High Research Activity institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. For more information, visit www.fau.edu.



About Noble Capital Markets



Noble Capital Markets, Inc. was incorporated in 1984 as a full-service SEC / FINRA registered broker-dealer, dedicated exclusively to serving underfollowed emerging growth companies through investment banking, wealth management, trading &amp; execution, and equity research activities. Over the past 39 years, Noble has raised billions of dollars for companies and published more than 45,000 equity research reports. www.noblecapitalmarkets.com &nbsp;contact@noblecapitalmarkets.com

Noble Capital Markets Annual Investor Conference – NobleCon – to be held at Florida Atlantic University December 3-5

<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full"><img src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/cc-news-svb-fail-news.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-62073"/></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">SVB’s Newfangled Failure Fits a Century-Old Pattern of Bank Runs, With a Social Media Twist</h2>



The history of bank failures all have a familiar pattern. Based on past history, problems may still bubble up over the coming months. The internet and the ability for online withdrawals could elevate risks to banks. <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/rodney-ramcharan-787712">Rodney Ramcharan</a> a Professor of Finance and Business Economics, University of Southern California, points out the similarities, the new challenges and provides his thoughts in his article that has been reprinted with permission from <a href="https://theconversation.com/svbs-newfangled-failure-fits-a-century-old-pattern-of-bank-runs-with-a-social-media-twist-202324">The Conversation</a>.















The failure of Silicon Valley Bank on March 10, 2023, came as a shock to most Americans. Even people like myself, a scholar of the U.S. banking system who has worked at the Federal Reserve, didn’t expect SVB’s collapse.



Usually banks, like all companies, fail after a prolonged period of lackluster performance. But SVB, the nation’s 16th-largest bank, had been stable and highly profitable just a few months before, having earned about US$1.5 billion in profits in the last quarter of 2022.



However, financial history is filled with examples of seemingly stable and profitable banks that unexpectedly failed.



The demise of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, two prominent investment banks, and Countrywide Financial Corp., a subprime mortgage lender, during the 2008-2009 financial crisis; the Savings and Loan banking crisis in the 1980s; and the complete collapse of the U.S. banking system during the Great Depression didn’t unfold in exactly the same way. But they had something in common: An unexpected change in economic conditions created an initial bank failure or two, followed by general panic and then large-scale economic distress.



The main difference this time, in my view, is that modern innovations may have hastened SVB’s demise.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Great Depression</h3>



The Great Depression, which lasted from 1929 to 1941, epitomized the public harm that bank runs and financial panic can cause.



Following a rapid expansion of the “Roaring Twenties,” the U.S. economy began to slow in early 1929. The stock market crashed on Oct. 24, 1929 – a date known as “Black Tuesday.”



The massive losses investors suffered weakened the economy and led to distress at some banks. Fearing that they would lose all their money, customers began to withdraw their funds from the weaker banks. Those banks, in turn, began to rapidly sell their loans and other assets to pay their depositors. These rapid sales pushed prices down further.



As this financial crisis spread, depositors with accounts at nearby banks also began queuing up to withdraw all their money, in a quintessential bank run, culminating in the failure of thousands of banks by early 1933. Soon after President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first inauguration, the federal government resorted to shutting all banks in the country for a whole week.



These failures meant that banks could no longer lend money, which led to more and more problems. The unemployment rate spiked to around 25%, and the economy shrank until the outbreak of World War II.



Determined to avoid a repeat of this debacle, the government tightened banking regulations with the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. It prohibited commercial banks, which serve consumers and small and medium-size businesses, from engaging in investment banking and created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insured deposits up to a certain threshold. That limit has risen sharply over the past 90 years, from $2,500 in 1933 to $250,000 in 2010 – the same limit in place today.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">S&amp;L Crisis</h3>



The nation’s new and improved banking regulations ushered in a period of relative stability in the banking system that lasted about 50 years.



But in the 1980s, hundreds of the small banks known as savings and loan associations failed. Savings and loans, also called “thrifts,” were generally small local banks that mainly made mortgage loans to households and collected deposits from their local communities.



Beginning in 1979, the Federal Reserve began to hike interest rates very aggressively to fight the high inflation rates that had become entrenched.



By the early 1980s, Congress began allowing banks to pay market interest rates on depositers’ accounts. As a result, the interest rate S&amp;Ls had to pay their customers was much higher than the interest income they were earning on the loans they had made in prior years. That imbalance caused many of them to lose money.



Even though about 1 in 3 S&amp;Ls failed from around 1986 through 1992 – somewhere around 750 banks – most depositors at small S&amp;Ls were protected by the FDIC’s then-$100,000 insurance limit. Ultimately, resolving that crisis cost taxpayers the equivalent of about $250 billion in today’s dollars.



Because the savings and loans industry was not directly connected to the big banks of that era, their collapse did not cause runs at the bigger institutions. Nevertheless, the S&amp;L collapse and the government’s regulatory response did reduce the supply of credit to the economy.



As a result, the U.S. economy underwent a mild recession in the latter half of 1990 and first quarter of 1991. But the banking system escaped further distress for nearly two decades.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Great Recession</h3>



Against this backdrop of relative stability, Congress repealed most of Glass-Steagall in 1999 – eliminating Depression-era regulations that restricted the scope of businesses that banks could engage in.



Those changes contributed to what happened when, at the start of a recession that began in December 2007, the entire financial sector suffered a panic.



At that time, large banks, freed from the Depression-era restrictions on securities trading, as well as investment banks, hedge funds and other institutions outside the traditional banking system, had heavily invested in mortgage-backed securities, a kind of bond backed by pooled mortgage payments from lots of homeowners. These bonds were highly profitable amid the housing boom of that era, and they helped many financial institutions reap record profits.



But the Federal Reserve had been increasing interest rates since 2004 to slow the economy. By 2007, many households with adjustable-rate mortgages could no longer afford to make their larger-than-expected home loan payments. That led investors to fear a rash of mortgage defaults, and the values of securities backed by mortgages plunged.



It wasn’t possible to know which investment banks owned a lot of these vulnerable securities. Rather than wait to find out and risk not getting paid, most of the depositors rushed to get their money out by late 2007. This stampede led to cascading failures in 2008 and 2009, and the federal government responded with a series of big bailouts.



The government even bailed out General Motors and Chrysler, two of the country’s three largest automakers, in December 2008 to keep the industry from going bankrupt. That happened because the major car companies relied on the financial system to provide potential car buyers with credit to purchase or lease new cars. But when the financial system collapsed, buyers could no longer obtain credit to finance or lease new vehicles.



The Great Recession lasted until June 2009. Stock prices plummeted by more than 50%, and unemployment peaked at around 10% – the highest rate since the early 1980s.



As with the Great Depression, the government responded to this financial crisis with significant new regulations, including a new law known as the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010. It imposed stringent new requirements on banks with assets above $50 billion.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Close-Knit Customers</h3>



Congress rolled back some of Dodd-Frank’s most significant changes only eight years after lawmakers approved the measure.



Notably, the most stringent requirements were now reserved for banks with more than $250 billion in assets, up from $50 billion. That change, which Congress passed in 2018, paved the way for regional banks like SVB to rapidly expand with much less regulatory oversight.



But still, how could SVB collapse so suddenly and without any warning?



Banks take deposits to make loans. But a loan is a long-term contract. Mortgages, for example, can last for 30 years. And deposits can be withdrawn at any time. To reduce their risks, banks can invest in bonds and other securities that they can quickly sell in case they need funds for their customers.



In the case of SVB, the bank invested heavily in U.S. Treasury bonds. Those bonds do not have any default risk, as they are debt issued by the federal government. But their value declines when interest rates rise, as newer bonds pay higher rates compared with the older bonds.



SVB bought a lot of Treasury bonds it had on hand when interest rates were close to zero, but the Fed has been steadily raising interest rates since March 2022, and the yields available for new Treasurys sharply increased over the next 12 months. Some depositors became concerned that SVB might not be able to sell these bonds at a high enough price to repay all its customers.



Unfortunately for SVB, these depositors were very close-knit, with most in the tech sector or startups. They turned to social media, group text messages and other modern forms of rapid communication to share their fears – which quickly went viral.



Many large depositors all rushed at the same time to get their funds out. Unlike what happened nearly a century earlier during the Great Depression, they generally tried to withdraw their money online – without forming chaotic lines at bank branches.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Will More Shoes Drop?</h3>



The government allowed SVB, which is being sold to First Citizens Bank, and Signature Bank, a smaller financial institution, to fail. But it agreed to repay all depositors – including those with deposits above the $250,000 limit.



While the authorities have not explicitly guaranteed all deposits in the banking system, I see the bailout of all SVB depositors as a clear signal that the government is prepared to take extraordinary steps to protect deposits in the banking system and prevent an overall panic.



I believe that it is too soon to say whether these measures will work, especially as the Fed is still fighting inflation and raising interest rates. But at this point, major U.S. banks appear safe, though there are growing risks among the smaller regional banks.

<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="663" height="438" src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/cc-news-svb-fail-news.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-62073" srcset="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/cc-news-svb-fail-news.jpg 663w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/cc-news-svb-fail-news-300x198.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 663px) 100vw, 663px" /></figure></div>


<h2 class="wp-block-heading">SVB’s Newfangled Failure Fits a Century-Old Pattern of Bank Runs, With a Social Media Twist</h2>



The history of bank failures all have a familiar pattern. Based on past history, problems may still bubble up over the coming months. The internet and the ability for online withdrawals could elevate risks to banks. <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/rodney-ramcharan-787712">Rodney Ramcharan</a> a Professor of Finance and Business Economics, University of Southern California, points out the similarities, the new challenges and provides his thoughts in his article that has been reprinted with permission from <a href="https://theconversation.com/svbs-newfangled-failure-fits-a-century-old-pattern-of-bank-runs-with-a-social-media-twist-202324">The Conversation</a>.















The failure of Silicon Valley Bank on March 10, 2023, came as a shock to most Americans. Even people like myself, a scholar of the U.S. banking system who has worked at the Federal Reserve, didn’t expect SVB’s collapse.



Usually banks, like all companies, fail after a prolonged period of lackluster performance. But SVB, the nation’s 16th-largest bank, had been stable and highly profitable just a few months before, having earned about US$1.5 billion in profits in the last quarter of 2022.



However, financial history is filled with examples of seemingly stable and profitable banks that unexpectedly failed.



The demise of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, two prominent investment banks, and Countrywide Financial Corp., a subprime mortgage lender, during the 2008-2009 financial crisis; the Savings and Loan banking crisis in the 1980s; and the complete collapse of the U.S. banking system during the Great Depression didn’t unfold in exactly the same way. But they had something in common: An unexpected change in economic conditions created an initial bank failure or two, followed by general panic and then large-scale economic distress.



The main difference this time, in my view, is that modern innovations may have hastened SVB’s demise.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Great Depression</h3>



The Great Depression, which lasted from 1929 to 1941, epitomized the public harm that bank runs and financial panic can cause.



Following a rapid expansion of the “Roaring Twenties,” the U.S. economy began to slow in early 1929. The stock market crashed on Oct. 24, 1929 – a date known as “Black Tuesday.”



The massive losses investors suffered weakened the economy and led to distress at some banks. Fearing that they would lose all their money, customers began to withdraw their funds from the weaker banks. Those banks, in turn, began to rapidly sell their loans and other assets to pay their depositors. These rapid sales pushed prices down further.



As this financial crisis spread, depositors with accounts at nearby banks also began queuing up to withdraw all their money, in a quintessential bank run, culminating in the failure of thousands of banks by early 1933. Soon after President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first inauguration, the federal government resorted to shutting all banks in the country for a whole week.



These failures meant that banks could no longer lend money, which led to more and more problems. The unemployment rate spiked to around 25%, and the economy shrank until the outbreak of World War II.



Determined to avoid a repeat of this debacle, the government tightened banking regulations with the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. It prohibited commercial banks, which serve consumers and small and medium-size businesses, from engaging in investment banking and created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insured deposits up to a certain threshold. That limit has risen sharply over the past 90 years, from $2,500 in 1933 to $250,000 in 2010 – the same limit in place today.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">S&amp;L Crisis</h3>



The nation’s new and improved banking regulations ushered in a period of relative stability in the banking system that lasted about 50 years.



But in the 1980s, hundreds of the small banks known as savings and loan associations failed. Savings and loans, also called “thrifts,” were generally small local banks that mainly made mortgage loans to households and collected deposits from their local communities.



Beginning in 1979, the Federal Reserve began to hike interest rates very aggressively to fight the high inflation rates that had become entrenched.



By the early 1980s, Congress began allowing banks to pay market interest rates on depositers’ accounts. As a result, the interest rate S&amp;Ls had to pay their customers was much higher than the interest income they were earning on the loans they had made in prior years. That imbalance caused many of them to lose money.



Even though about 1 in 3 S&amp;Ls failed from around 1986 through 1992 – somewhere around 750 banks – most depositors at small S&amp;Ls were protected by the FDIC’s then-$100,000 insurance limit. Ultimately, resolving that crisis cost taxpayers the equivalent of about $250 billion in today’s dollars.



Because the savings and loans industry was not directly connected to the big banks of that era, their collapse did not cause runs at the bigger institutions. Nevertheless, the S&amp;L collapse and the government’s regulatory response did reduce the supply of credit to the economy.



As a result, the U.S. economy underwent a mild recession in the latter half of 1990 and first quarter of 1991. But the banking system escaped further distress for nearly two decades.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Great Recession</h3>



Against this backdrop of relative stability, Congress repealed most of Glass-Steagall in 1999 – eliminating Depression-era regulations that restricted the scope of businesses that banks could engage in.



Those changes contributed to what happened when, at the start of a recession that began in December 2007, the entire financial sector suffered a panic.



At that time, large banks, freed from the Depression-era restrictions on securities trading, as well as investment banks, hedge funds and other institutions outside the traditional banking system, had heavily invested in mortgage-backed securities, a kind of bond backed by pooled mortgage payments from lots of homeowners. These bonds were highly profitable amid the housing boom of that era, and they helped many financial institutions reap record profits.



But the Federal Reserve had been increasing interest rates since 2004 to slow the economy. By 2007, many households with adjustable-rate mortgages could no longer afford to make their larger-than-expected home loan payments. That led investors to fear a rash of mortgage defaults, and the values of securities backed by mortgages plunged.



It wasn’t possible to know which investment banks owned a lot of these vulnerable securities. Rather than wait to find out and risk not getting paid, most of the depositors rushed to get their money out by late 2007. This stampede led to cascading failures in 2008 and 2009, and the federal government responded with a series of big bailouts.



The government even bailed out General Motors and Chrysler, two of the country’s three largest automakers, in December 2008 to keep the industry from going bankrupt. That happened because the major car companies relied on the financial system to provide potential car buyers with credit to purchase or lease new cars. But when the financial system collapsed, buyers could no longer obtain credit to finance or lease new vehicles.



The Great Recession lasted until June 2009. Stock prices plummeted by more than 50%, and unemployment peaked at around 10% – the highest rate since the early 1980s.



As with the Great Depression, the government responded to this financial crisis with significant new regulations, including a new law known as the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010. It imposed stringent new requirements on banks with assets above $50 billion.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Close-Knit Customers</h3>



Congress rolled back some of Dodd-Frank’s most significant changes only eight years after lawmakers approved the measure.



Notably, the most stringent requirements were now reserved for banks with more than $250 billion in assets, up from $50 billion. That change, which Congress passed in 2018, paved the way for regional banks like SVB to rapidly expand with much less regulatory oversight.



But still, how could SVB collapse so suddenly and without any warning?



Banks take deposits to make loans. But a loan is a long-term contract. Mortgages, for example, can last for 30 years. And deposits can be withdrawn at any time. To reduce their risks, banks can invest in bonds and other securities that they can quickly sell in case they need funds for their customers.



In the case of SVB, the bank invested heavily in U.S. Treasury bonds. Those bonds do not have any default risk, as they are debt issued by the federal government. But their value declines when interest rates rise, as newer bonds pay higher rates compared with the older bonds.



SVB bought a lot of Treasury bonds it had on hand when interest rates were close to zero, but the Fed has been steadily raising interest rates since March 2022, and the yields available for new Treasurys sharply increased over the next 12 months. Some depositors became concerned that SVB might not be able to sell these bonds at a high enough price to repay all its customers.



Unfortunately for SVB, these depositors were very close-knit, with most in the tech sector or startups. They turned to social media, group text messages and other modern forms of rapid communication to share their fears – which quickly went viral.



Many large depositors all rushed at the same time to get their funds out. Unlike what happened nearly a century earlier during the Great Depression, they generally tried to withdraw their money online – without forming chaotic lines at bank branches.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Will More Shoes Drop?</h3>



The government allowed SVB, which is being sold to First Citizens Bank, and Signature Bank, a smaller financial institution, to fail. But it agreed to repay all depositors – including those with deposits above the $250,000 limit.



While the authorities have not explicitly guaranteed all deposits in the banking system, I see the bailout of all SVB depositors as a clear signal that the government is prepared to take extraordinary steps to protect deposits in the banking system and prevent an overall panic.



I believe that it is too soon to say whether these measures will work, especially as the Fed is still fighting inflation and raising interest rates. But at this point, major U.S. banks appear safe, though there are growing risks among the smaller regional banks.

SVB’s Newfangled Failure Fits a Century-Old Pattern of Bank Runs, With a Social Media Twist



The history of bank failures all have a familiar pattern. Based on past history, problems may still bubble up over the coming months. The internet and the ability for online withdrawals could elevate risks to banks. Rodney Ramcharan a Professor of Finance and Business Economics, University of Southern California, points out the similarities, the new challenges and provides his thoughts in his article that has been reprinted with permission from The Conversation.















The failure of Silicon Valley Bank on March 10, 2023, came as a shock to most Americans. Even people like myself, a scholar of the U.S. banking system who has worked at the Federal Reserve, didn’t expect SVB’s collapse.



Usually banks, like all companies, fail after a prolonged period of lackluster performance. But SVB, the nation’s 16th-largest bank, had been stable and highly profitable just a few months before, having earned about US$1.5 billion in profits in the last quarter of 2022.



However, financial history is filled with examples of seemingly stable and profitable banks that unexpectedly failed.



The demise of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, two prominent investment banks, and Countrywide Financial Corp., a subprime mortgage lender, during the 2008-2009 financial crisis; the Savings and Loan banking crisis in the 1980s; and the complete collapse of the U.S. banking system during the Great Depression didn’t unfold in exactly the same way. But they had something in common: An unexpected change in economic conditions created an initial bank failure or two, followed by general panic and then large-scale economic distress.



The main difference this time, in my view, is that modern innovations may have hastened SVB’s demise.







Great Depression



The Great Depression, which lasted from 1929 to 1941, epitomized the public harm that bank runs and financial panic can cause.



Following a rapid expansion of the “Roaring Twenties,” the U.S. economy began to slow in early 1929. The stock market crashed on Oct. 24, 1929 – a date known as “Black Tuesday.”



The massive losses investors suffered weakened the economy and led to distress at some banks. Fearing that they would lose all their money, customers began to withdraw their funds from the weaker banks. Those banks, in turn, began to rapidly sell their loans and other assets to pay their depositors. These rapid sales pushed prices down further.



As this financial crisis spread, depositors with accounts at nearby banks also began queuing up to withdraw all their money, in a quintessential bank run, culminating in the failure of thousands of banks by early 1933. Soon after President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first inauguration, the federal government resorted to shutting all banks in the country for a whole week.



These failures meant that banks could no longer lend money, which led to more and more problems. The unemployment rate spiked to around 25%, and the economy shrank until the outbreak of World War II.



Determined to avoid a repeat of this debacle, the government tightened banking regulations with the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. It prohibited commercial banks, which serve consumers and small and medium-size businesses, from engaging in investment banking and created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insured deposits up to a certain threshold. That limit has risen sharply over the past 90 years, from $2,500 in 1933 to $250,000 in 2010 – the same limit in place today.







S&amp;L Crisis



The nation’s new and improved banking regulations ushered in a period of relative stability in the banking system that lasted about 50 years.



But in the 1980s, hundreds of the small banks known as savings and loan associations failed. Savings and loans, also called “thrifts,” were generally small local banks that mainly made mortgage loans to households and collected deposits from their local communities.



Beginning in 1979, the Federal Reserve began to hike interest rates very aggressively to fight the high inflation rates that had become entrenched.



By the early 1980s, Congress began allowing banks to pay market interest rates on depositers’ accounts. As a result, the interest rate S&amp;Ls had to pay their customers was much higher than the interest income they were earning on the loans they had made in prior years. That imbalance caused many of them to lose money.



Even though about 1 in 3 S&amp;Ls failed from around 1986 through 1992 – somewhere around 750 banks – most depositors at small S&amp;Ls were protected by the FDIC’s then-$100,000 insurance limit. Ultimately, resolving that crisis cost taxpayers the equivalent of about $250 billion in today’s dollars.



Because the savings and loans industry was not directly connected to the big banks of that era, their collapse did not cause runs at the bigger institutions. Nevertheless, the S&amp;L collapse and the government’s regulatory response did reduce the supply of credit to the economy.



As a result, the U.S. economy underwent a mild recession in the latter half of 1990 and first quarter of 1991. But the banking system escaped further distress for nearly two decades.







Great Recession



Against this backdrop of relative stability, Congress repealed most of Glass-Steagall in 1999 – eliminating Depression-era regulations that restricted the scope of businesses that banks could engage in.



Those changes contributed to what happened when, at the start of a recession that began in December 2007, the entire financial sector suffered a panic.



At that time, large banks, freed from the Depression-era restrictions on securities trading, as well as investment banks, hedge funds and other institutions outside the traditional banking system, had heavily invested in mortgage-backed securities, a kind of bond backed by pooled mortgage payments from lots of homeowners. These bonds were highly profitable amid the housing boom of that era, and they helped many financial institutions reap record profits.



But the Federal Reserve had been increasing interest rates since 2004 to slow the economy. By 2007, many households with adjustable-rate mortgages could no longer afford to make their larger-than-expected home loan payments. That led investors to fear a rash of mortgage defaults, and the values of securities backed by mortgages plunged.



It wasn’t possible to know which investment banks owned a lot of these vulnerable securities. Rather than wait to find out and risk not getting paid, most of the depositors rushed to get their money out by late 2007. This stampede led to cascading failures in 2008 and 2009, and the federal government responded with a series of big bailouts.



The government even bailed out General Motors and Chrysler, two of the country’s three largest automakers, in December 2008 to keep the industry from going bankrupt. That happened because the major car companies relied on the financial system to provide potential car buyers with credit to purchase or lease new cars. But when the financial system collapsed, buyers could no longer obtain credit to finance or lease new vehicles.



The Great Recession lasted until June 2009. Stock prices plummeted by more than 50%, and unemployment peaked at around 10% – the highest rate since the early 1980s.



As with the Great Depression, the government responded to this financial crisis with significant new regulations, including a new law known as the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010. It imposed stringent new requirements on banks with assets above $50 billion.







Close-Knit Customers



Congress rolled back some of Dodd-Frank’s most significant changes only eight years after lawmakers approved the measure.



Notably, the most stringent requirements were now reserved for banks with more than $250 billion in assets, up from $50 billion. That change, which Congress passed in 2018, paved the way for regional banks like SVB to rapidly expand with much less regulatory oversight.



But still, how could SVB collapse so suddenly and without any warning?



Banks take deposits to make loans. But a loan is a long-term contract. Mortgages, for example, can last for 30 years. And deposits can be withdrawn at any time. To reduce their risks, banks can invest in bonds and other securities that they can quickly sell in case they need funds for their customers.



In the case of SVB, the bank invested heavily in U.S. Treasury bonds. Those bonds do not have any default risk, as they are debt issued by the federal government. But their value declines when interest rates rise, as newer bonds pay higher rates compared with the older bonds.



SVB bought a lot of Treasury bonds it had on hand when interest rates were close to zero, but the Fed has been steadily raising interest rates since March 2022, and the yields available for new Treasurys sharply increased over the next 12 months. Some depositors became concerned that SVB might not be able to sell these bonds at a high enough price to repay all its customers.



Unfortunately for SVB, these depositors were very close-knit, with most in the tech sector or startups. They turned to social media, group text messages and other modern forms of rapid communication to share their fears – which quickly went viral.



Many large depositors all rushed at the same time to get their funds out. Unlike what happened nearly a century earlier during the Great Depression, they generally tried to withdraw their money online – without forming chaotic lines at bank branches.







Will More Shoes Drop?



The government allowed SVB, which is being sold to First Citizens Bank, and Signature Bank, a smaller financial institution, to fail. But it agreed to repay all depositors – including those with deposits above the $250,000 limit.



While the authorities have not explicitly guaranteed all deposits in the banking system, I see the bailout of all SVB depositors as a clear signal that the government is prepared to take extraordinary steps to protect deposits in the banking system and prevent an overall panic.



I believe that it is too soon to say whether these measures will work, especially as the Fed is still fighting inflation and raising interest rates. But at this point, major U.S. banks appear safe, though there are growing risks among the smaller regional banks.

Silicon Valley Technology Added to SVB’s Quick Demise

Banks

<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full"><img src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/CC-news-fdic-occ-663.png" alt="" class="wp-image-61991"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: Coindesk (Flickr)</figcaption></figure>



<h2>Washington DC Law Firm that Won Operation Choke Hold Suit, Gives Congress Advice</h2>







Are private digital assets, under unlawful attack by regulators? Sounds conspiratorial, but a D.C. law firm that successfully sued the FDIC, Federal Reserve, and Office of the Controller of the Currency (OCC), says they are doing just that. The firm Cooper &amp; Kirk, won a large lawsuit dubbed against the agencies for their part in, “Operation Choke Point.” &nbsp;That was a decade ago, the law firm now claims they have uncovered a coordinated campaign by bank regulators to drive crypto out of the U.S. financial system.



The new “Operation Choke Point 2.0,” according to the firms website, “have published informal guidance documents that single out cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency customers as a risk to the banking system.” According to an informational paper published by the D.C. firm, “businesses in the cryptocurrency marketplace are losing their bank accounts, or their access to the ACH network, suddenly, and with no explanation from their bankers, the paper continued, “the owners and employees of cryptocurrency firms are even having their personal accounts closed without explanation.”



As an example of could be viewed as overstepping their charters, the firm pointed out that, “over the past two weeks, federal regulators have shut down a solvent bank that was known to be serving the crypto industry and, although it is required to resolve banks through the “least cost resolution” to the Deposit Insurance Fund, the FDIC chose to shutter rather than sell the part of the bank that serves digital asset customers, costing the Fund billions of dollars.” The overall theme of the 37 page paper is that the targeting of certain businesses is going on to force them out of existence.



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full"><img src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230428-article2-1.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-61994"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://www.cooperkirk.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Operation-Choke-Point-2.0.pdf">White Paper on Operation Choke Point 2.0</a>, Cooper &amp; Kirk LLC</figcaption></figure>







<h3>What are Regulators Accused Of</h3>



Specifically the regulators are being accused of:



<ul>
<li>Depriving businesses of their constitutional right to due process. This is a fifth amendment right that says that an entity tagging another with a derogatory label that causes injury (like lose bank accounts) The firm accuses that this is what the regulators have done by “labeling crypto a threat to the financial system.”</li>



<li>Violating both the non-delegation and anticommandeering doctrine by, “depriving Americans of Key Structural constitutional protections against the arbitrary exercise of government power.”</li>



<li>Refusing to perform their non-discretionary duties “when doing so will benefit the cryptocurrency industry.”</li>



<li>Evading rules that require periods of notice and comment of the rulemaking requirements of the administrative procedure act. It claims circumventing this is, “undemocratic.”</li>



<li>Acting in an arbitrary and capricious fashion by avoiding explaining underlying rules for their decisions. “It is difficult to imagine a more arbitrary and capricious agency action that simultaneously placing a solvent bank into receivership solely because it provided financial services to the cypto industry, while permitting insolvent institutions not tied to the crypto industry to continue operations.”</li>
</ul>







What is the Law Firms Stated Intent



Cooper and Kirk urge the U.S. Congress to perform its role and hold the agencies accountable. The firm urges the Congress to ask for all communications records related to these matters from the regulators.



The firm also would like for them to explain the basis for their conclusion that safety and soundness of the banking system requires the banking system be insulated from crypto. They would also like for it to be made clear to the agencies that the comment period of the Administrative procedure act is mandatory. It wanst an investigation into why Signature Bank was closed.



The last stated hope is fro Congress to investigate whether bank regulators are working to squelch innovation from the private sector in order to clear out competition for the benefit of existing regulated banks and a new federal crypto asset.







<h3>Take Away</h3>



Just like the first Operation Choke Point was targeting specific players, the new version does the same. The law firms stops short of any threats in their open paper, but it makes clear that the firm has solid experience achieving compliance if these maters.



<a href="https://www.cooperkirk.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Operation-Choke-Point-2.0.pdf">https://www.cooperkirk.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Operation-Choke-Point-2.0.pdf</a>

<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="663" height="342" src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/CC-news-fdic-occ-663.png" alt="" class="wp-image-61991" srcset="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/CC-news-fdic-occ-663.png 663w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/CC-news-fdic-occ-663-300x155.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 663px) 100vw, 663px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: Coindesk (Flickr)</figcaption></figure></div>


<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Washington DC Law Firm that Won Operation Choke Hold Suit, Gives Congress Advice</h2>







Are private digital assets, under unlawful attack by regulators? Sounds conspiratorial, but a D.C. law firm that successfully sued the FDIC, Federal Reserve, and Office of the Controller of the Currency (OCC), says they are doing just that. The firm Cooper &amp; Kirk, won a large lawsuit dubbed against the agencies for their part in, “Operation Choke Point.” &nbsp;That was a decade ago, the law firm now claims they have uncovered a coordinated campaign by bank regulators to drive crypto out of the U.S. financial system.



The new “Operation Choke Point 2.0,” according to the firms website, “have published informal guidance documents that single out cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency customers as a risk to the banking system.” According to an informational paper published by the D.C. firm, “businesses in the cryptocurrency marketplace are losing their bank accounts, or their access to the ACH network, suddenly, and with no explanation from their bankers, the paper continued, “the owners and employees of cryptocurrency firms are even having their personal accounts closed without explanation.”



As an example of could be viewed as overstepping their charters, the firm pointed out that, “over the past two weeks, federal regulators have shut down a solvent bank that was known to be serving the crypto industry and, although it is required to resolve banks through the “least cost resolution” to the Deposit Insurance Fund, the FDIC chose to shutter rather than sell the part of the bank that serves digital asset customers, costing the Fund billions of dollars.” The overall theme of the 37 page paper is that the targeting of certain businesses is going on to force them out of existence.


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="650" height="196" src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230428-article2-1.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-61994" srcset="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230428-article2-1.jpg 650w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230428-article2-1-300x90.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://www.cooperkirk.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Operation-Choke-Point-2.0.pdf">White Paper on Operation Choke Point 2.0</a>, Cooper &amp; Kirk LLC</figcaption></figure></div>






<h3 class="wp-block-heading">What are Regulators Accused Of</h3>



Specifically the regulators are being accused of:



<ul>
<li>Depriving businesses of their constitutional right to due process. This is a fifth amendment right that says that an entity tagging another with a derogatory label that causes injury (like lose bank accounts) The firm accuses that this is what the regulators have done by “labeling crypto a threat to the financial system.”</li>



<li>Violating both the non-delegation and anticommandeering doctrine by, “depriving Americans of Key Structural constitutional protections against the arbitrary exercise of government power.”</li>



<li>Refusing to perform their non-discretionary duties “when doing so will benefit the cryptocurrency industry.”</li>



<li>Evading rules that require periods of notice and comment of the rulemaking requirements of the administrative procedure act. It claims circumventing this is, “undemocratic.”</li>



<li>Acting in an arbitrary and capricious fashion by avoiding explaining underlying rules for their decisions. “It is difficult to imagine a more arbitrary and capricious agency action that simultaneously placing a solvent bank into receivership solely because it provided financial services to the cypto industry, while permitting insolvent institutions not tied to the crypto industry to continue operations.”</li>
</ul>







What is the Law Firms Stated Intent



Cooper and Kirk urge the U.S. Congress to perform its role and hold the agencies accountable. The firm urges the Congress to ask for all communications records related to these matters from the regulators.



The firm also would like for them to explain the basis for their conclusion that safety and soundness of the banking system requires the banking system be insulated from crypto. They would also like for it to be made clear to the agencies that the comment period of the Administrative procedure act is mandatory. It wanst an investigation into why Signature Bank was closed.



The last stated hope is fro Congress to investigate whether bank regulators are working to squelch innovation from the private sector in order to clear out competition for the benefit of existing regulated banks and a new federal crypto asset.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Take Away</h3>



Just like the first Operation Choke Point was targeting specific players, the new version does the same. The law firms stops short of any threats in their open paper, but it makes clear that the firm has solid experience achieving compliance if these maters.



<a href="https://www.cooperkirk.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Operation-Choke-Point-2.0.pdf">https://www.cooperkirk.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Operation-Choke-Point-2.0.pdf</a>

Source: Coindesk (Flickr)


Washington DC Law Firm that Won Operation Choke Hold Suit, Gives Congress Advice







Are private digital assets, under unlawful attack by regulators? Sounds conspiratorial, but a D.C. law firm that successfully sued the FDIC, Federal Reserve, and Office of the Controller of the Currency (OCC), says they are doing just that. The firm Cooper &amp; Kirk, won a large lawsuit dubbed against the agencies for their part in, “Operation Choke Point.” &nbsp;That was a decade ago, the law firm now claims they have uncovered a coordinated campaign by bank regulators to drive crypto out of the U.S. financial system.



The new “Operation Choke Point 2.0,” according to the firms website, “have published informal guidance documents that single out cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency customers as a risk to the banking system.” According to an informational paper published by the D.C. firm, “businesses in the cryptocurrency marketplace are losing their bank accounts, or their access to the ACH network, suddenly, and with no explanation from their bankers, the paper continued, “the owners and employees of cryptocurrency firms are even having their personal accounts closed without explanation.”



As an example of could be viewed as overstepping their charters, the firm pointed out that, “over the past two weeks, federal regulators have shut down a solvent bank that was known to be serving the crypto industry and, although it is required to resolve banks through the “least cost resolution” to the Deposit Insurance Fund, the FDIC chose to shutter rather than sell the part of the bank that serves digital asset customers, costing the Fund billions of dollars.” The overall theme of the 37 page paper is that the targeting of certain businesses is going on to force them out of existence.



Source: White Paper on Operation Choke Point 2.0, Cooper &amp; Kirk LLC






What are Regulators Accused Of



Specifically the regulators are being accused of:




Depriving businesses of their constitutional right to due process. This is a fifth amendment right that says that an entity tagging another with a derogatory label that causes injury (like lose bank accounts) The firm accuses that this is what the regulators have done by “labeling crypto a threat to the financial system.”



Violating both the non-delegation and anticommandeering doctrine by, “depriving Americans of Key Structural constitutional protections against the arbitrary exercise of government power.”



Refusing to perform their non-discretionary duties “when doing so will benefit the cryptocurrency industry.”



Evading rules that require periods of notice and comment of the rulemaking requirements of the administrative procedure act. It claims circumventing this is, “undemocratic.”



Acting in an arbitrary and capricious fashion by avoiding explaining underlying rules for their decisions. “It is difficult to imagine a more arbitrary and capricious agency action that simultaneously placing a solvent bank into receivership solely because it provided financial services to the cypto industry, while permitting insolvent institutions not tied to the crypto industry to continue operations.”








What is the Law Firms Stated Intent



Cooper and Kirk urge the U.S. Congress to perform its role and hold the agencies accountable. The firm urges the Congress to ask for all communications records related to these matters from the regulators.



The firm also would like for them to explain the basis for their conclusion that safety and soundness of the banking system requires the banking system be insulated from crypto. They would also like for it to be made clear to the agencies that the comment period of the Administrative procedure act is mandatory. It wanst an investigation into why Signature Bank was closed.



The last stated hope is fro Congress to investigate whether bank regulators are working to squelch innovation from the private sector in order to clear out competition for the benefit of existing regulated banks and a new federal crypto asset.







Take Away



Just like the first Operation Choke Point was targeting specific players, the new version does the same. The law firms stops short of any threats in their open paper, but it makes clear that the firm has solid experience achieving compliance if these maters.



https://www.cooperkirk.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Operation-Choke-Point-2.0.pdf

Are Bank Regulators Illegally Punishing Crypto Users?

FDIC

<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full"><img src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/cc-news-lithium-acquisition-663.png" alt="" class="wp-image-61961"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Image Credit: Liontown Resources</figcaption></figure>







<h2>M&amp;A Trends Could Drive Mining Stocks Much Higher?</h2>



The building wave of M&amp;A deals in at least two of the mining sectors, is difficult to ignore. This week, lithium miner (ALB) disclosed it had submitted a proposal to acquire Liontown Resources (LTR.Australia). Last month Newmont Mining’s proposed acquisition of Newcrest Mining, highlighted the rising interest in M&amp;A in the gold sector. To date, both proposals have been shunned, but as companies look to increase production, inflation increases producers capital outlays, plus long permitting processes, a case could be made that growth by acquisition, friendly or not, is becoming more appealing in the sector.



Typically growing demand to buy smaller companies in a sector puts upward pressure on valuations.



The gold and lithium sectors have mostly lead over the past six months in terms of deal-making. For gold, the largest driver is these miners remain undervalued by historical levels. The trend for lithium producers in the years ahead, as battery production ramps up to meet surging demand for electric storage and green technology, is expected to continue to accelerate.



The Price of lithium, key to batteries found in most EVs, over the years has risen. This created a situation where car manufacturers themselves have realized that the best way to ensure a key ingredient to their product is to own all or part of a large enough producer. Lithium producers are looking for ways to increase yield and own more production facilities. These factors could unfold into a situation where the stock prices of companies producing either of these two metals, and even other mined minerals with growing demand, could outperform other sectors.







<h3>Five Reasons to Explore Small Mining Companies</h3>



While the real heat is on producers of minerals used to make batteries and gold miners, the below supply/demand concepts may apply to an increased need for other miners to involve themselves in M&amp;A as well.







<ol type="1">
<li>New List of Acquirers – The big car companies, energy companies, &nbsp;and other additional industrial consumers are in need of reliable supply.&nbsp;</li>



<li>Cheaper to Buy than Find – M&amp;A is a solution to the increased costs of growing organically. It also helps circumvent what could be permitting delays and supply chain problems that prevent headway.</li>



<li>Scale – Gold companies normally try to extract synergies when seeking to size up, while lithium producers seek pure scale.</li>



<li>Big Picture Economics – The economic environment favors miners if inflation remains elevated; the companies’ production is more likely to sell for more. The cost of money, on an opportunity cost basis, especially net of inflation (real interest) favors mining.</li>



<li>Finding Value – Informed stock selection is key to discover and invest in companies best positioned to benefit from swelling M&amp;A in the sector.</li>
</ol>







The fifth on this list is less of a reason to explore mining companies and more a common sense reminder. Last week the Channelchek Take Away Series brought to viewers a live in-depth presentation of 12 mining companies that were just coming off the huge PDAC mining conference in Canada. These presentations are being replayed and may be just the place to begin to hear from company executives, and a highly respected senior natural resources analyst. Audience questions and answers follow.



The information on these on-demand replay videos is current, and as you’ll see by <a href="https://www.channelchek.com/news-channel/channelchek-takeaway-series-pdac-minerals-exploration-mining-convention">clicking here</a>, the list of video presentations includes a diversified mix of producers and explorers.



<a href="mailto:phoffman@channelchek.com">Paul Hoffman</a>



Managing Editor, Channelchek



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/image-1024x127.png" alt="" class="wp-image-61967"/></figure>



<a href="https://www.channelchek.com/news-channel/channelchek-takeaway-series-pdac-minerals-exploration-mining-convention"></a>







Sources



<a href="https://www.barrons.com/articles/how-to-handle-an-uncertain-market-buy-weakness-sell-strength-f145c306">https://www.barrons.com/articles/how-to-handle-an-uncertain-market-buy-weakness-sell-strength-f145c306</a>

<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="663" height="442" src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/cc-news-lithium-acquisition-663.png" alt="" class="wp-image-61961" srcset="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/cc-news-lithium-acquisition-663.png 663w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/cc-news-lithium-acquisition-663-300x200.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 663px) 100vw, 663px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Image Credit: Liontown Resources</figcaption></figure></div>






<h2>M&amp;A Trends Could Drive Mining Stocks Much Higher?</h2>



The building wave of M&amp;A deals in at least two of the mining sectors, is difficult to ignore. This week, lithium miner (ALB) disclosed it had submitted a proposal to acquire Liontown Resources (LTR.Australia). Last month Newmont Mining’s proposed acquisition of Newcrest Mining, highlighted the rising interest in M&amp;A in the gold sector. To date, both proposals have been shunned, but as companies look to increase production, inflation increases producers capital outlays, plus long permitting processes, a case could be made that growth by acquisition, friendly or not, is becoming more appealing in the sector.



Typically growing demand to buy smaller companies in a sector puts upward pressure on valuations.



The gold and lithium sectors have mostly lead over the past six months in terms of deal-making. For gold, the largest driver is these miners remain undervalued by historical levels. The trend for lithium producers in the years ahead, as battery production ramps up to meet surging demand for electric storage and green technology, is expected to continue to accelerate.



The Price of lithium, key to batteries found in most EVs, over the years has risen. This created a situation where car manufacturers themselves have realized that the best way to ensure a key ingredient to their product is to own all or part of a large enough producer. Lithium producers are looking for ways to increase yield and own more production facilities. These factors could unfold into a situation where the stock prices of companies producing either of these two metals, and even other mined minerals with growing demand, could outperform other sectors.







<h3>Five Reasons to Explore Small Mining Companies</h3>



While the real heat is on producers of minerals used to make batteries and gold miners, the below supply/demand concepts may apply to an increased need for other miners to involve themselves in M&amp;A as well.







<ol type="1">
<li>New List of Acquirers – The big car companies, energy companies, &nbsp;and other additional industrial consumers are in need of reliable supply.&nbsp;</li>



<li>Cheaper to Buy than Find – M&amp;A is a solution to the increased costs of growing organically. It also helps circumvent what could be permitting delays and supply chain problems that prevent headway.</li>



<li>Scale – Gold companies normally try to extract synergies when seeking to size up, while lithium producers seek pure scale.</li>



<li>Big Picture Economics – The economic environment favors miners if inflation remains elevated; the companies’ production is more likely to sell for more. The cost of money, on an opportunity cost basis, especially net of inflation (real interest) favors mining.</li>



<li>Finding Value – Informed stock selection is key to discover and invest in companies best positioned to benefit from swelling M&amp;A in the sector.</li>
</ol>







The fifth on this list is less of a reason to explore mining companies and more a common sense reminder. Last week the Channelchek Take Away Series brought to viewers a live in-depth presentation of 12 mining companies that were just coming off the huge PDAC mining conference in Canada. These presentations are being replayed and may be just the place to begin to hear from company executives, and a highly respected senior natural resources analyst. Audience questions and answers follow.



The information on these on-demand replay videos is current, and as you’ll see by <a href="https://www.channelchek.com/news-channel/channelchek-takeaway-series-pdac-minerals-exploration-mining-convention">clicking here</a>, the list of video presentations includes a diversified mix of producers and explorers.



<a href="mailto:phoffman@channelchek.com">Paul Hoffman</a>



Managing Editor, Channelchek



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="127" src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/image-1024x127.png" alt="" class="wp-image-61967" srcset="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/image-1024x127.png 1024w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/image-300x37.png 300w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/image-768x95.png 768w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/image-1536x190.png 1536w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/image.png 1600w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



<a href="https://www.channelchek.com/news-channel/channelchek-takeaway-series-pdac-minerals-exploration-mining-convention"></a>







Sources



<a href="https://www.barrons.com/articles/how-to-handle-an-uncertain-market-buy-weakness-sell-strength-f145c306">https://www.barrons.com/articles/how-to-handle-an-uncertain-market-buy-weakness-sell-strength-f145c306</a>

Image Credit: Liontown Resources






M&amp;A Trends Could Drive Mining Stocks Much Higher?



The building wave of M&amp;A deals in at least two of the mining sectors, is difficult to ignore. This week, lithium miner (ALB) disclosed it had submitted a proposal to acquire Liontown Resources (LTR.Australia). Last month Newmont Mining’s proposed acquisition of Newcrest Mining, highlighted the rising interest in M&amp;A in the gold sector. To date, both proposals have been shunned, but as companies look to increase production, inflation increases producers capital outlays, plus long permitting processes, a case could be made that growth by acquisition, friendly or not, is becoming more appealing in the sector.



Typically growing demand to buy smaller companies in a sector puts upward pressure on valuations.



The gold and lithium sectors have mostly lead over the past six months in terms of deal-making. For gold, the largest driver is these miners remain undervalued by historical levels. The trend for lithium producers in the years ahead, as battery production ramps up to meet surging demand for electric storage and green technology, is expected to continue to accelerate.



The Price of lithium, key to batteries found in most EVs, over the years has risen. This created a situation where car manufacturers themselves have realized that the best way to ensure a key ingredient to their product is to own all or part of a large enough producer. Lithium producers are looking for ways to increase yield and own more production facilities. These factors could unfold into a situation where the stock prices of companies producing either of these two metals, and even other mined minerals with growing demand, could outperform other sectors.







Five Reasons to Explore Small Mining Companies



While the real heat is on producers of minerals used to make batteries and gold miners, the below supply/demand concepts may apply to an increased need for other miners to involve themselves in M&amp;A as well.








New List of Acquirers – The big car companies, energy companies, &nbsp;and other additional industrial consumers are in need of reliable supply.&nbsp;



Cheaper to Buy than Find – M&amp;A is a solution to the increased costs of growing organically. It also helps circumvent what could be permitting delays and supply chain problems that prevent headway.



Scale – Gold companies normally try to extract synergies when seeking to size up, while lithium producers seek pure scale.



Big Picture Economics – The economic environment favors miners if inflation remains elevated; the companies’ production is more likely to sell for more. The cost of money, on an opportunity cost basis, especially net of inflation (real interest) favors mining.



Finding Value – Informed stock selection is key to discover and invest in companies best positioned to benefit from swelling M&amp;A in the sector.








The fifth on this list is less of a reason to explore mining companies and more a common sense reminder. Last week the Channelchek Take Away Series brought to viewers a live in-depth presentation of 12 mining companies that were just coming off the huge PDAC mining conference in Canada. These presentations are being replayed and may be just the place to begin to hear from company executives, and a highly respected senior natural resources analyst. Audience questions and answers follow.



The information on these on-demand replay videos is current, and as you’ll see by clicking here, the list of video presentations includes a diversified mix of producers and explorers.



Paul Hoffman



Managing Editor, Channelchek















Sources



https://www.barrons.com/articles/how-to-handle-an-uncertain-market-buy-weakness-sell-strength-f145c306

Five Reasons to Get Excited About Mining Stocks

Lithium

Mining

PDAC

<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full"><img src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/cc-news-deep-fake-663.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-61917"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Image Credit: Steve Juvetson (Flickr)</figcaption></figure>



<h2>Watermarking ChatGPT and Other Generative AIs Could Help Protect Against Fraud and Misinformation</h2>







Shortly after rumors leaked of former President Donald Trump’s impending indictment, images purporting to show his arrest appeared online. These images looked like news photos, but they were fake. They were created by a generative artificial intelligence system.



Generative AI, in the form of image generators like DALL-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, and text generators like Bard, ChatGPT, Chinchilla and LLaMA, has exploded in the public sphere. By combining clever machine-learning algorithms with billions of pieces of human-generated content, these systems can do anything from create an eerily realistic image from a caption, synthesize a speech in President Joe Biden’s voice, replace one person’s likeness with another in a video, or write a coherent 800-word op-ed from a title prompt.







This article was republished with permission from The Conversation, a news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It represents the research-based findings and thoughts of, <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/hany-farid-456960">Hany Farid</a>, Professor of Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley.







Even in these early days, generative AI is capable of creating highly realistic content. My colleague Sophie Nightingale and I found that the average person is unable to reliably distinguish an image of a real person from an AI-generated person. Although audio and video have not yet fully passed through the uncanny valley – images or models of people that are unsettling because they are close to but not quite realistic – they are likely to soon. When this happens, and it is all but guaranteed to, it will become increasingly easier to distort reality.



In this new world, it will be a snap to generate a video of a CEO saying her company’s profits are down 20%, which could lead to billions in market-share loss, or to generate a video of a world leader threatening military action, which could trigger a geopolitical crisis, or to insert the likeness of anyone into a sexually explicit video.



Advances in generative AI will soon mean that fake but visually convincing content will proliferate online, leading to an even messier information ecosystem. A secondary consequence is that detractors will be able to easily dismiss as fake actual video evidence of everything from police violence and human rights violations to a world leader burning top-secret documents.



As society stares down the barrel of what is almost certainly just the beginning of these advances in generative AI, there are reasonable and technologically feasible interventions that can be used to help mitigate these abuses. As a computer scientist who specializes in image forensics, I believe that a key method is watermarking.







<h3>Watermarks</h3>



There is a long history of marking documents and other items to prove their authenticity, indicate ownership and counter counterfeiting. Today, Getty Images, a massive image archive, adds a visible watermark to all digital images in their catalog. This allows customers to freely browse images while protecting Getty’s assets.



Imperceptible digital watermarks are also used for digital rights management. A watermark can be added to a digital image by, for example, tweaking every 10th image pixel so that its color (typically a number in the range 0 to 255) is even-valued. Because this pixel tweaking is so minor, the watermark is imperceptible. And, because this periodic pattern is unlikely to occur naturally, and can easily be verified, it can be used to verify an image’s provenance.



Even medium-resolution images contain millions of pixels, which means that additional information can be embedded into the watermark, including a unique identifier that encodes the generating software and a unique user ID. This same type of imperceptible watermark can be applied to audio and video.



The ideal watermark is one that is imperceptible and also resilient to simple manipulations like cropping, resizing, color adjustment and converting digital formats. Although the pixel color watermark example is not resilient because the color values can be changed, many watermarking strategies have been proposed that are robust – though not impervious – to attempts to remove them.







<h3>Watermarking and AI</h3>



These watermarks can be baked into the generative AI systems by watermarking all the training data, after which the generated content will contain the same watermark. This baked-in watermark is attractive because it means that generative AI tools can be open-sourced – as the image generator Stable Diffusion is – without concerns that a watermarking process could be removed from the image generator’s software. Stable Diffusion has a watermarking function, but because it’s open source, anyone can simply remove that part of the code.



OpenAI is experimenting with a system to watermark ChatGPT’s creations. Characters in a paragraph cannot, of course, be tweaked like a pixel value, so text watermarking takes on a different form.



Text-based generative AI is based on producing the next most-reasonable word in a sentence. For example, starting with the sentence fragment “an AI system can…,” ChatGPT will predict that the next word should be “learn,” “predict” or “understand.” Associated with each of these words is a probability corresponding to the likelihood of each word appearing next in the sentence. ChatGPT learned these probabilities from the large body of text it was trained on.







<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full"><img src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230327-article2-1.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-61919"/></figure>







Generated text can be watermarked by secretly tagging a subset of words and then biasing the selection of a word to be a synonymous tagged word. For example, the tagged word “comprehend” can be used instead of “understand.” By periodically biasing word selection in this way, a body of text is watermarked based on a particular distribution of tagged words. This approach won’t work for short tweets but is generally effective with text of 800 or more words depending on the specific watermark details.



Generative AI systems can, and I believe should, watermark all their content, allowing for easier downstream identification and, if necessary, intervention. If the industry won’t do this voluntarily, lawmakers could pass regulation to enforce this rule. Unscrupulous people will, of course, not comply with these standards. But, if the major online gatekeepers – Apple and Google app stores, Amazon, Google, Microsoft cloud services and GitHub – enforce these rules by banning noncompliant software, the harm will be significantly reduced.







<h3>Signing Authentic Content</h3>



Tackling the problem from the other end, a similar approach could be adopted to authenticate original audiovisual recordings at the point of capture. A specialized camera app could cryptographically sign the recorded content as it’s recorded. There is no way to tamper with this signature without leaving evidence of the attempt. The signature is then stored on a centralized list of trusted signatures.



Although not applicable to text, audiovisual content can then be verified as human-generated. The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authentication (C2PA), a collaborative effort to create a standard for authenticating media, recently released an open specification to support this approach. With major institutions including Adobe, Microsoft, Intel, BBC and many others joining this effort, the C2PA is well positioned to produce effective and widely deployed authentication technology.



The combined signing and watermarking of human-generated and AI-generated content will not prevent all forms of abuse, but it will provide some measure of protection. Any safeguards will have to be continually adapted and refined as adversaries find novel ways to weaponize the latest technologies.



In the same way that society has been fighting a decadeslong battle against other cyber threats like spam, malware and phishing, we should prepare ourselves for an equally protracted battle to defend against various forms of abuse perpetrated using generative AI.

<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="663" height="371" src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/cc-news-deep-fake-663.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-61917" srcset="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/cc-news-deep-fake-663.jpg 663w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/cc-news-deep-fake-663-300x168.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 663px) 100vw, 663px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Image Credit: Steve Juvetson (Flickr)</figcaption></figure></div>


<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Watermarking ChatGPT and Other Generative AIs Could Help Protect Against Fraud and Misinformation</h2>







Shortly after rumors leaked of former President Donald Trump’s impending indictment, images purporting to show his arrest appeared online. These images looked like news photos, but they were fake. They were created by a generative artificial intelligence system.



Generative AI, in the form of image generators like DALL-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, and text generators like Bard, ChatGPT, Chinchilla and LLaMA, has exploded in the public sphere. By combining clever machine-learning algorithms with billions of pieces of human-generated content, these systems can do anything from create an eerily realistic image from a caption, synthesize a speech in President Joe Biden’s voice, replace one person’s likeness with another in a video, or write a coherent 800-word op-ed from a title prompt.







This article was republished with permission from The Conversation, a news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It represents the research-based findings and thoughts of, <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/hany-farid-456960">Hany Farid</a>, Professor of Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley.







Even in these early days, generative AI is capable of creating highly realistic content. My colleague Sophie Nightingale and I found that the average person is unable to reliably distinguish an image of a real person from an AI-generated person. Although audio and video have not yet fully passed through the uncanny valley – images or models of people that are unsettling because they are close to but not quite realistic – they are likely to soon. When this happens, and it is all but guaranteed to, it will become increasingly easier to distort reality.



In this new world, it will be a snap to generate a video of a CEO saying her company’s profits are down 20%, which could lead to billions in market-share loss, or to generate a video of a world leader threatening military action, which could trigger a geopolitical crisis, or to insert the likeness of anyone into a sexually explicit video.



Advances in generative AI will soon mean that fake but visually convincing content will proliferate online, leading to an even messier information ecosystem. A secondary consequence is that detractors will be able to easily dismiss as fake actual video evidence of everything from police violence and human rights violations to a world leader burning top-secret documents.



As society stares down the barrel of what is almost certainly just the beginning of these advances in generative AI, there are reasonable and technologically feasible interventions that can be used to help mitigate these abuses. As a computer scientist who specializes in image forensics, I believe that a key method is watermarking.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Watermarks</h3>



There is a long history of marking documents and other items to prove their authenticity, indicate ownership and counter counterfeiting. Today, Getty Images, a massive image archive, adds a visible watermark to all digital images in their catalog. This allows customers to freely browse images while protecting Getty’s assets.



Imperceptible digital watermarks are also used for digital rights management. A watermark can be added to a digital image by, for example, tweaking every 10th image pixel so that its color (typically a number in the range 0 to 255) is even-valued. Because this pixel tweaking is so minor, the watermark is imperceptible. And, because this periodic pattern is unlikely to occur naturally, and can easily be verified, it can be used to verify an image’s provenance.



Even medium-resolution images contain millions of pixels, which means that additional information can be embedded into the watermark, including a unique identifier that encodes the generating software and a unique user ID. This same type of imperceptible watermark can be applied to audio and video.



The ideal watermark is one that is imperceptible and also resilient to simple manipulations like cropping, resizing, color adjustment and converting digital formats. Although the pixel color watermark example is not resilient because the color values can be changed, many watermarking strategies have been proposed that are robust – though not impervious – to attempts to remove them.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Watermarking and AI</h3>



These watermarks can be baked into the generative AI systems by watermarking all the training data, after which the generated content will contain the same watermark. This baked-in watermark is attractive because it means that generative AI tools can be open-sourced – as the image generator Stable Diffusion is – without concerns that a watermarking process could be removed from the image generator’s software. Stable Diffusion has a watermarking function, but because it’s open source, anyone can simply remove that part of the code.



OpenAI is experimenting with a system to watermark ChatGPT’s creations. Characters in a paragraph cannot, of course, be tweaked like a pixel value, so text watermarking takes on a different form.



Text-based generative AI is based on producing the next most-reasonable word in a sentence. For example, starting with the sentence fragment “an AI system can…,” ChatGPT will predict that the next word should be “learn,” “predict” or “understand.” Associated with each of these words is a probability corresponding to the likelihood of each word appearing next in the sentence. ChatGPT learned these probabilities from the large body of text it was trained on.






<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="690" height="843" src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230327-article2-1.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-61919" srcset="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230327-article2-1.jpg 690w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230327-article2-1-246x300.jpg 246w" sizes="(max-width: 690px) 100vw, 690px" /></figure></div>






Generated text can be watermarked by secretly tagging a subset of words and then biasing the selection of a word to be a synonymous tagged word. For example, the tagged word “comprehend” can be used instead of “understand.” By periodically biasing word selection in this way, a body of text is watermarked based on a particular distribution of tagged words. This approach won’t work for short tweets but is generally effective with text of 800 or more words depending on the specific watermark details.



Generative AI systems can, and I believe should, watermark all their content, allowing for easier downstream identification and, if necessary, intervention. If the industry won’t do this voluntarily, lawmakers could pass regulation to enforce this rule. Unscrupulous people will, of course, not comply with these standards. But, if the major online gatekeepers – Apple and Google app stores, Amazon, Google, Microsoft cloud services and GitHub – enforce these rules by banning noncompliant software, the harm will be significantly reduced.







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Signing Authentic Content</h3>



Tackling the problem from the other end, a similar approach could be adopted to authenticate original audiovisual recordings at the point of capture. A specialized camera app could cryptographically sign the recorded content as it’s recorded. There is no way to tamper with this signature without leaving evidence of the attempt. The signature is then stored on a centralized list of trusted signatures.



Although not applicable to text, audiovisual content can then be verified as human-generated. The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authentication (C2PA), a collaborative effort to create a standard for authenticating media, recently released an open specification to support this approach. With major institutions including Adobe, Microsoft, Intel, BBC and many others joining this effort, the C2PA is well positioned to produce effective and widely deployed authentication technology.



The combined signing and watermarking of human-generated and AI-generated content will not prevent all forms of abuse, but it will provide some measure of protection. Any safeguards will have to be continually adapted and refined as adversaries find novel ways to weaponize the latest technologies.



In the same way that society has been fighting a decadeslong battle against other cyber threats like spam, malware and phishing, we should prepare ourselves for an equally protracted battle to defend against various forms of abuse perpetrated using generative AI.

Image Credit: Steve Juvetson (Flickr)


Watermarking ChatGPT and Other Generative AIs Could Help Protect Against Fraud and Misinformation







Shortly after rumors leaked of former President Donald Trump’s impending indictment, images purporting to show his arrest appeared online. These images looked like news photos, but they were fake. They were created by a generative artificial intelligence system.



Generative AI, in the form of image generators like DALL-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, and text generators like Bard, ChatGPT, Chinchilla and LLaMA, has exploded in the public sphere. By combining clever machine-learning algorithms with billions of pieces of human-generated content, these systems can do anything from create an eerily realistic image from a caption, synthesize a speech in President Joe Biden’s voice, replace one person’s likeness with another in a video, or write a coherent 800-word op-ed from a title prompt.







This article was republished with permission from The Conversation, a news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It represents the research-based findings and thoughts of, Hany Farid, Professor of Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley.







Even in these early days, generative AI is capable of creating highly realistic content. My colleague Sophie Nightingale and I found that the average person is unable to reliably distinguish an image of a real person from an AI-generated person. Although audio and video have not yet fully passed through the uncanny valley – images or models of people that are unsettling because they are close to but not quite realistic – they are likely to soon. When this happens, and it is all but guaranteed to, it will become increasingly easier to distort reality.



In this new world, it will be a snap to generate a video of a CEO saying her company’s profits are down 20%, which could lead to billions in market-share loss, or to generate a video of a world leader threatening military action, which could trigger a geopolitical crisis, or to insert the likeness of anyone into a sexually explicit video.



Advances in generative AI will soon mean that fake but visually convincing content will proliferate online, leading to an even messier information ecosystem. A secondary consequence is that detractors will be able to easily dismiss as fake actual video evidence of everything from police violence and human rights violations to a world leader burning top-secret documents.



As society stares down the barrel of what is almost certainly just the beginning of these advances in generative AI, there are reasonable and technologically feasible interventions that can be used to help mitigate these abuses. As a computer scientist who specializes in image forensics, I believe that a key method is watermarking.







Watermarks



There is a long history of marking documents and other items to prove their authenticity, indicate ownership and counter counterfeiting. Today, Getty Images, a massive image archive, adds a visible watermark to all digital images in their catalog. This allows customers to freely browse images while protecting Getty’s assets.



Imperceptible digital watermarks are also used for digital rights management. A watermark can be added to a digital image by, for example, tweaking every 10th image pixel so that its color (typically a number in the range 0 to 255) is even-valued. Because this pixel tweaking is so minor, the watermark is imperceptible. And, because this periodic pattern is unlikely to occur naturally, and can easily be verified, it can be used to verify an image’s provenance.



Even medium-resolution images contain millions of pixels, which means that additional information can be embedded into the watermark, including a unique identifier that encodes the generating software and a unique user ID. This same type of imperceptible watermark can be applied to audio and video.



The ideal watermark is one that is imperceptible and also resilient to simple manipulations like cropping, resizing, color adjustment and converting digital formats. Although the pixel color watermark example is not resilient because the color values can be changed, many watermarking strategies have been proposed that are robust – though not impervious – to attempts to remove them.







Watermarking and AI



These watermarks can be baked into the generative AI systems by watermarking all the training data, after which the generated content will contain the same watermark. This baked-in watermark is attractive because it means that generative AI tools can be open-sourced – as the image generator Stable Diffusion is – without concerns that a watermarking process could be removed from the image generator’s software. Stable Diffusion has a watermarking function, but because it’s open source, anyone can simply remove that part of the code.



OpenAI is experimenting with a system to watermark ChatGPT’s creations. Characters in a paragraph cannot, of course, be tweaked like a pixel value, so text watermarking takes on a different form.



Text-based generative AI is based on producing the next most-reasonable word in a sentence. For example, starting with the sentence fragment “an AI system can…,” ChatGPT will predict that the next word should be “learn,” “predict” or “understand.” Associated with each of these words is a probability corresponding to the likelihood of each word appearing next in the sentence. ChatGPT learned these probabilities from the large body of text it was trained on.














Generated text can be watermarked by secretly tagging a subset of words and then biasing the selection of a word to be a synonymous tagged word. For example, the tagged word “comprehend” can be used instead of “understand.” By periodically biasing word selection in this way, a body of text is watermarked based on a particular distribution of tagged words. This approach won’t work for short tweets but is generally effective with text of 800 or more words depending on the specific watermark details.



Generative AI systems can, and I believe should, watermark all their content, allowing for easier downstream identification and, if necessary, intervention. If the industry won’t do this voluntarily, lawmakers could pass regulation to enforce this rule. Unscrupulous people will, of course, not comply with these standards. But, if the major online gatekeepers – Apple and Google app stores, Amazon, Google, Microsoft cloud services and GitHub – enforce these rules by banning noncompliant software, the harm will be significantly reduced.







Signing Authentic Content



Tackling the problem from the other end, a similar approach could be adopted to authenticate original audiovisual recordings at the point of capture. A specialized camera app could cryptographically sign the recorded content as it’s recorded. There is no way to tamper with this signature without leaving evidence of the attempt. The signature is then stored on a centralized list of trusted signatures.



Although not applicable to text, audiovisual content can then be verified as human-generated. The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authentication (C2PA), a collaborative effort to create a standard for authenticating media, recently released an open specification to support this approach. With major institutions including Adobe, Microsoft, Intel, BBC and many others joining this effort, the C2PA is well positioned to produce effective and widely deployed authentication technology.



The combined signing and watermarking of human-generated and AI-generated content will not prevent all forms of abuse, but it will provide some measure of protection. Any safeguards will have to be continually adapted and refined as adversaries find novel ways to weaponize the latest technologies.



In the same way that society has been fighting a decadeslong battle against other cyber threats like spam, malware and phishing, we should prepare ourselves for an equally protracted battle to defend against various forms of abuse perpetrated using generative AI.

Deep Fakes and the Risk of Abuse

<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Weekly-Outlook-April_1_2023-1024x682.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-61852"/></figure>



<h2>Much of the Noise this Week Could Be from Outside of US Markets?</h2>







The U.S. does not get a great deal of economic data to react to this week. But that usually means the focus shifts, and market participants grasp onto signs they may otherwise ignore. There are many inflation reports during the week. They are from outside of the U.S. economy until Friday morning. Global inflation, not just trading partners could impact other nations. This is because if one region raises its benchmark interest rate, others either follow or risk weakening its own native currency.



March German inflation will come late in the week, starting with Germany’s CPI on Thursday. This will be followed by France’s CPI on Friday, then the full Eurozone later Friday. February PCE data from the U.S. will also be posted on Friday. Australia will be posting its February CPI on Wednesday. Most reports are expected to show declines, with the reservation that much of the reduced increases are derived from lower fuel costs. This would suggest that economic forces raising prices are still largely at work.







<h3>Monday 3/27</h3>



•             No pertinent Economic numbers are to be released







<h3>Tuesday 3/28</h3>



•&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 10:00 AM ET, Consumer Confidence, after two months of market surprising declines, the consumer confidence index is not expected to perk up in March, the consensus is instead a further decline in confidence to a consensus 101.0 versus February's 102.9.



•&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 10:00 AM ET, Michael Barr, the Vice Chair for Supervision at the Federal Reserve will give Testimony before the Michael Barr, the Vice Chair for Supervision at the Federal Reserve will give Testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. <a href="https://financialservices.house.gov/">Watch here.</a>



•             1:00 PM ET, Money Supply, since some banks have experienced difficulties with lower deposits, is becoming closely watch report once more. The prior month, money supply read 30.9 billion. The measure has two main components, M1 and M2. M1 is included in M2. M1, the more narrowly defined measure, consists of the most liquid forms of money, namely currency and checkable deposits. The non-M1 components of M2 are primarily household holdings of savings deposits, small time deposits, and retail money market mutual funds.







<h3>Wednesday 3/29</h3>



•&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 10:00 AM ET, Michael Barr will testify before the U.S. House Financial Services CommitteeThe Energy Information Administration (EIA) Petroleum Status Report,&nbsp; provides weekly information on petroleum inventories in the U.S., whether produced here or abroad. The level of inventories helps determine prices for petroleum products.



•             10:00 AM ET, Pending Home Sales during February are expected to rise 1.0 percent on top of January's 8.1 percent elevation.







<h3>Thursday 3/30</h3>



•&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 8:30 AM ET, GDP’s third estimate for 4Q 2022 is expected to remain at 2.7 percent growth in the quarter's second estimate. Personal consumption expenditures, at 1.4 percent growth in the second estimate, is also expected to remain unchanged.



•             4:30 PM ET, The Fed’s Balance Sheet has received more attention since the beginning of quantitative tightening (Q.T.). The last report  should an increase as a result of the new Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP).







<h3>Friday 3/31</h3>



•&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 8:30 AM ET, Personal Income and Outlays is expected to have risen 0.3 percent in February with consumption expenditures expected to have increased 0.2 percent. In January there was a rise of 0.6 percent for income and 1.8 percent surge for consumption. Inflation readings for February are expected at monthly increases of 0.4 percent both overall and for the core (versus 0.6 percent increases for both in January) for annual rates of 5.1 and 4.7 percent (versus January's respective rates of 5.4 and 4.7 percent).



•             10:00 AM ET, Consumer Sentiment in late March is expected to be unchanged from the mid-month flash of 63.4.







<h3>What Else</h3>



We congratulate all the NCAA basketball teams that made the final four teams competing in the NCAA championships. This includes the Florida Atlantic University basketball team that has made the final four for the first time. While we wish all teams well, the large investor conference sponsored by Channelchek, NobleCon19, will be held at the elaborate College of Business Executive Education at FAU. So this adds to all of our interest at Channelchek. These final March Madness games start on Saturday, April 1st, and while we officially don’t have a consensus read on the final outcome, we hope for excellent play from all. Learn more about the <a href="https://noblecon19.com/">NobleCon19 conference on the FAU campus by clicking here.</a>



<a href="mailto:phoffman@channelchek.com">Paul Hoffman</a>



Managing Editor, Channelchek







<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://noblecon19.com/"><img src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/new-cc-nc19-banner-1-1024x129.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-61768"/></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption"><a href="https://noblecon19.com/">noblecon19.com/</a></figcaption></figure>



<a href="https://noblecon19.com/"></a>



Sources



<a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/other20230319a.htm">https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/other20230319a.htm</a>



<a href="https://us.econoday.com/articles.aspx?cust=us&amp;year=2023&amp;lid=0">https://us.econoday.com/articles.aspx?cust=us&amp;year=2023&amp;lid=0</a>

<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="682" src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Weekly-Outlook-April_1_2023-1024x682.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-61852" srcset="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Weekly-Outlook-April_1_2023-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Weekly-Outlook-April_1_2023-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Weekly-Outlook-April_1_2023-768x511.jpg 768w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Weekly-Outlook-April_1_2023-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Weekly-Outlook-April_1_2023.jpg 2021w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure></div>


<h2>Much of the Noise this Week Could Be from Outside of US Markets?</h2>







The U.S. does not get a great deal of economic data to react to this week. But that usually means the focus shifts, and market participants grasp onto signs they may otherwise ignore. There are many inflation reports during the week. They are from outside of the U.S. economy until Friday morning. Global inflation, not just trading partners could impact other nations. This is because if one region raises its benchmark interest rate, others either follow or risk weakening its own native currency.



March German inflation will come late in the week, starting with Germany’s CPI on Thursday. This will be followed by France’s CPI on Friday, then the full Eurozone later Friday. February PCE data from the U.S. will also be posted on Friday. Australia will be posting its February CPI on Wednesday. Most reports are expected to show declines, with the reservation that much of the reduced increases are derived from lower fuel costs. This would suggest that economic forces raising prices are still largely at work.







<h3>Monday 3/27</h3>



•             No pertinent Economic numbers are to be released







<h3>Tuesday 3/28</h3>



•&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 10:00 AM ET, Consumer Confidence, after two months of market surprising declines, the consumer confidence index is not expected to perk up in March, the consensus is instead a further decline in confidence to a consensus 101.0 versus February&#8217;s 102.9.



•&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 10:00 AM ET, Michael Barr, the Vice Chair for Supervision at the Federal Reserve will give Testimony before the Michael Barr, the Vice Chair for Supervision at the Federal Reserve will give Testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. <a href="https://financialservices.house.gov/">Watch here.</a>



•             1:00 PM ET, Money Supply, since some banks have experienced difficulties with lower deposits, is becoming closely watch report once more. The prior month, money supply read 30.9 billion. The measure has two main components, M1 and M2. M1 is included in M2. M1, the more narrowly defined measure, consists of the most liquid forms of money, namely currency and checkable deposits. The non-M1 components of M2 are primarily household holdings of savings deposits, small time deposits, and retail money market mutual funds.







<h3>Wednesday 3/29</h3>



•&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 10:00 AM ET, Michael Barr will testify before the U.S. House Financial Services CommitteeThe Energy Information Administration (EIA) Petroleum Status Report,&nbsp; provides weekly information on petroleum inventories in the U.S., whether produced here or abroad. The level of inventories helps determine prices for petroleum products.



•             10:00 AM ET, Pending Home Sales during February are expected to rise 1.0 percent on top of January&#8217;s 8.1 percent elevation.







<h3>Thursday 3/30</h3>



•&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 8:30 AM ET, GDP’s third estimate for 4Q 2022 is expected to remain at 2.7 percent growth in the quarter&#8217;s second estimate. Personal consumption expenditures, at 1.4 percent growth in the second estimate, is also expected to remain unchanged.



•             4:30 PM ET, The Fed’s Balance Sheet has received more attention since the beginning of quantitative tightening (Q.T.). The last report  should an increase as a result of the new Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP).







<h3>Friday 3/31</h3>



•&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 8:30 AM ET, Personal Income and Outlays is expected to have risen 0.3 percent in February with consumption expenditures expected to have increased 0.2 percent. In January there was a rise of 0.6 percent for income and 1.8 percent surge for consumption. Inflation readings for February are expected at monthly increases of 0.4 percent both overall and for the core (versus 0.6 percent increases for both in January) for annual rates of 5.1 and 4.7 percent (versus January&#8217;s respective rates of 5.4 and 4.7 percent).



•             10:00 AM ET, Consumer Sentiment in late March is expected to be unchanged from the mid-month flash of 63.4.







<h3>What Else</h3>



We congratulate all the NCAA basketball teams that made the final four teams competing in the NCAA championships. This includes the Florida Atlantic University basketball team that has made the final four for the first time. While we wish all teams well, the large investor conference sponsored by Channelchek, NobleCon19, will be held at the elaborate College of Business Executive Education at FAU. So this adds to all of our interest at Channelchek. These final March Madness games start on Saturday, April 1st, and while we officially don’t have a consensus read on the final outcome, we hope for excellent play from all. Learn more about the <a href="https://noblecon19.com/">NobleCon19 conference on the FAU campus by clicking here.</a>



<a href="mailto:phoffman@channelchek.com">Paul Hoffman</a>



Managing Editor, Channelchek







<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://noblecon19.com/"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="129" src="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/new-cc-nc19-banner-1-1024x129.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-61768" srcset="https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/new-cc-nc19-banner-1-1024x129.jpg 1024w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/new-cc-nc19-banner-1-300x38.jpg 300w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/new-cc-nc19-banner-1-768x97.jpg 768w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/new-cc-nc19-banner-1-1536x193.jpg 1536w, https://dashboard.channelchek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/new-cc-nc19-banner-1.jpg 1756w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption"><a href="https://noblecon19.com/">noblecon19.com/</a></figcaption></figure>



<a href="https://noblecon19.com/"></a>



Sources



<a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/other20230319a.htm">https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/other20230319a.htm</a>



<a href="https://us.econoday.com/articles.aspx?cust=us&amp;year=2023&amp;lid=0">https://us.econoday.com/articles.aspx?cust=us&amp;year=2023&amp;lid=0</a>

Much of the Noise this Week Could Be from Outside of US Markets?







The U.S. does not get a great deal of economic data to react to this week. But that usually means the focus shifts, and market participants grasp onto signs they may otherwise ignore. There are many inflation reports during the week. They are from outside of the U.S. economy until Friday morning. Global inflation, not just trading partners could impact other nations. This is because if one region raises its benchmark interest rate, others either follow or risk weakening its own native currency.



March German inflation will come late in the week, starting with Germany’s CPI on Thursday. This will be followed by France’s CPI on Friday, then the full Eurozone later Friday. February PCE data from the U.S. will also be posted on Friday. Australia will be posting its February CPI on Wednesday. Most reports are expected to show declines, with the reservation that much of the reduced increases are derived from lower fuel costs. This would suggest that economic forces raising prices are still largely at work.







Monday 3/27



•             No pertinent Economic numbers are to be released







Tuesday 3/28



•&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 10:00 AM ET, Consumer Confidence, after two months of market surprising declines, the consumer confidence index is not expected to perk up in March, the consensus is instead a further decline in confidence to a consensus 101.0 versus February&#8217;s 102.9.



•&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 10:00 AM ET, Michael Barr, the Vice Chair for Supervision at the Federal Reserve will give Testimony before the Michael Barr, the Vice Chair for Supervision at the Federal Reserve will give Testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Watch here.



•             1:00 PM ET, Money Supply, since some banks have experienced difficulties with lower deposits, is becoming closely watch report once more. The prior month, money supply read 30.9 billion. The measure has two main components, M1 and M2. M1 is included in M2. M1, the more narrowly defined measure, consists of the most liquid forms of money, namely currency and checkable deposits. The non-M1 components of M2 are primarily household holdings of savings deposits, small time deposits, and retail money market mutual funds.







Wednesday 3/29



•&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 10:00 AM ET, Michael Barr will testify before the U.S. House Financial Services CommitteeThe Energy Information Administration (EIA) Petroleum Status Report,&nbsp; provides weekly information on petroleum inventories in the U.S., whether produced here or abroad. The level of inventories helps determine prices for petroleum products.



•             10:00 AM ET, Pending Home Sales during February are expected to rise 1.0 percent on top of January&#8217;s 8.1 percent elevation.







Thursday 3/30



•&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 8:30 AM ET, GDP’s third estimate for 4Q 2022 is expected to remain at 2.7 percent growth in the quarter&#8217;s second estimate. Personal consumption expenditures, at 1.4 percent growth in the second estimate, is also expected to remain unchanged.



•             4:30 PM ET, The Fed’s Balance Sheet has received more attention since the beginning of quantitative tightening (Q.T.). The last report  should an increase as a result of the new Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP).







Friday 3/31



•&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 8:30 AM ET, Personal Income and Outlays is expected to have risen 0.3 percent in February with consumption expenditures expected to have increased 0.2 percent. In January there was a rise of 0.6 percent for income and 1.8 percent surge for consumption. Inflation readings for February are expected at monthly increases of 0.4 percent both overall and for the core (versus 0.6 percent increases for both in January) for annual rates of 5.1 and 4.7 percent (versus January&#8217;s respective rates of 5.4 and 4.7 percent).



•             10:00 AM ET, Consumer Sentiment in late March is expected to be unchanged from the mid-month flash of 63.4.







What Else



We congratulate all the NCAA basketball teams that made the final four teams competing in the NCAA championships. This includes the Florida Atlantic University basketball team that has made the final four for the first time. While we wish all teams well, the large investor conference sponsored by Channelchek, NobleCon19, will be held at the elaborate College of Business Executive Education at FAU. So this adds to all of our interest at Channelchek. These final March Madness games start on Saturday, April 1st, and while we officially don’t have a consensus read on the final outcome, we hope for excellent play from all. Learn more about the NobleCon19 conference on the FAU campus by clicking here.



Paul Hoffman



Managing Editor, Channelchek







noblecon19.com/







Sources



https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/other20230319a.htm



https://us.econoday.com/articles.aspx?cust=us&amp;year=2023&amp;lid=0