Single-family rental firms eye Zillow’s housing stock - Big investment firms are looking at buying some of the thousands of homes that Zillow is preparing to unload as it dismantles its home-flipping business. Unlike Zillow, many of the firms aren’t interested in making a buck on a quick flip. Instead, they want to capitalize on the booming business of acquiring homes and renting them out to families. Read more
‘Every firm is talking about it’: Venture capital is having its New York moment - In the 1980s, venture capital firm Sequoia set a tone for the tech investing industry with a Silicon Valley-first mantra: if we can’t ride a bicycle to it, we won’t invest. Today, that motto’s playing out a bit differently: on the streets of New York City, over Citi Bike. Read more
Investors throw cash at any ETF with ‘inflation’ in the name - Endless demand to protect portfolios from rising prices is fueling an indiscriminate boom in one corner of the $7.2t U.S. exchange-traded fund market. Every single ETF with the word “inflation” in either its name or description has posted inflows so far this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg -- a rare degree of one-way conviction among the investing masses. Read more
Lemonade set to buy insurer Metromile in its first takeover - Lemonade, which went public last year, last week debuted an auto-insurance product called Lemonade Car, currently being sold in Illinois with plans to roll out the offering in other states. Buying Metromile helps New York-based Lemonade build up that business while giving it auto-claims data and a team that’s worked in the business for a decade. Read more
Morgan Stanley gives rich customers what they want: hot startups - The firm is building an a-la-carte menu of private-share offerings for its wealthiest clients, executives said. The program is expected to go live next year and will be overseen by a new hire, Mike Gaviser, who previously held senior fundraising jobs at KKR and AllianceBernstein. The price of admission: at least $20m in assets. Read more
Robinhood security breach exposes data on millions of users - The intruder obtained email addresses of about 5m people as well as full names for a separate group of about 2m, Robinhood said in a statement. For some customers, even more personal data was exposed, including names, birth dates and ZIP codes of about 310 people, and more extensive information belonging to a group of about 10. Read more
You’ll be able to pay for Amazon purchases with Venmo starting in 2022 - Details on the Amazon partnership are scarce right now, but if you’ve got a US Venmo account, PayPal says you’ll be able to use it to make purchases at both Amazon’s website and its mobile app starting in 2022, and you’ll be able to use either your Venmo balance or a linked bank account to pay. Read more
Elon Musk’s Twitter poll results favor Tesla stock sale - Mr. Musk on Saturday put the potential share sale up for popular vote on the social-media platform as he waded back into the debate over how some of the wealthiest Americans should be taxed. Read more
Rich millennials to financial advisers: thanks for the golf invite, but you can’t invest my money - More rich young investors are opting to go without a traditional financial adviser. Instead, they are betting they can get good-enough investment options from do-it-yourself digital platforms that are cheap and easy to use. Many also want to invest in riskier assets, like cryptocurrencies and tech startups, that mainstream advisers often don’t offer. Read more
Klarna debuts US-based pay in 4 subscription service - The BNPL platform expanded its offerings for U.S. consumers and retailers to include flexible payment for subscriptions. It is the first company in the country to offer a tool to manage payments for quarterly and annual subscriptions, memberships and more. The expansion allows consumers to pay for their beauty, apparel and fitness purchases in four interest-free payments and track it through the Klarna app. Read more
Wall Street banks push into Europe’s private capital markets - Senior executives at Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase said they were focusing expansion efforts on their private placements businesses amid a broader feeding frenzy in capital markets. They are betting that the increase in fundraisings by private companies will prove to be more than a temporary boom. Read more
Alibaba Singles’ Day posts record sales - The 2020 edition roughly doubled sales from the prior year, as Alibaba added several days and additional services to the count. But the festivities this time around have been more low key, with Alibaba seeking to turn the focus from sales growth to its efforts in sustainability and philanthropy -- key pillars of President Xi Jinping’s drive to achieve “common prosperity.” Read more |
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