Why These Banks Want to Join the Blockchain Revolution

Like anything new and revolutionary, cryptocurrency has its believers and its skeptics.

Both are making a ruckus.

The mainstream press isn’t helping matters. As far as I can tell, it’s gamified the subject. The side – whether it’s pro or con – with the most quotes published wins.

What a load of rubbish! We all know that multiple opinions expressing the same point of view do not represent “proof,” no matter how passionately they’re expressed.

And it sure does make for a noisy room.

Is the technology real? Does it have legs? Is it disruptive, if not revolutionary?

Here’s the thing. I’m not interested in your opinion.

Don’t tell me. Show me.

It’s pretty simple. Are you blowing the technology off? Or are you actively exploring or developing it?

Sorry, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, you can’t say it’s a fraud and also have your bank adopt it.

That’s just utter nonsense.

A more valid exercise is to note what potential users of blockchain technology are doing.

And what better sector to hone in on than our antiquated global financial system where billions of people move trillions of dollars every day.

Remarkably, cost, speed and security are about the same now as they were 50 years ago. The major innovations have been in convenience, thanks to the ATM and advances in online banking.

But ATM use can come with fees. And online banking still has some surprising bugs. I recently found this out firsthand after learning that the online account balance I see is different from the online account balance my bank (PNC) sees. Totally confusing.

Global trade and cross-border payments are also surprisingly clunky. For example, letters of credit involve several banks, hefty fees and long waits. When I ran my global trade and finance business about a decade ago, I avoided the wait by doing something called “import factoring.” It cost me a precious 2% to 3% to get the cash quickly, but it was worth it.

The beauty of blockchain? With it, all but a small fraction of that 2% to 3% would go away. Trade finance, security clearance and settlements, cross-border payments, and insurance are all areas where blockchain technology can make a big difference.

Just another opinion? Well, let’s focus not on what the banks are saying, but what they’re doing.

Here’s a look at their blockchain-related activity so far, courtesy of Outlier Ventures…

Who’s missing? PNC is one (surprise, surprise). Chase is another. That’s about it.

All the other large commercial banks are eyebrow-deep in blockchain initiatives.

And as you can see, they already have “proof of concept.” That means the technology does what it’s supposed to do in controlled settings or on a small scale.

Rigorous live-use testing awaits. That’s going to be key.

All the major banks – except Goldman Sachs, Banco Santander and Morgan Stanley – recently completed an academically tested prototype to automate and digitize money transactions around trade on R3’s Corda ledger.

Again, the actual field testing of Corda’s settlement algorithms is just beginning. We’ll know more soon.

JPMorgan, Wells Fargo and asset management firm Northern Trust are using Hyperledger Fabric for private equity deal record-keeping.

These big banks believe the reduced costs, greater speeds and more user-friendly interfaces are all within reach. Now, that doesn’t mean it will happen… or, if it does happen, that things will go smoothly.

From 2013 to 2016, financial institutions filed 2,700 patents in areas like blockchain technology. It’s hard to imagine that all this activity will yield nothing.

Innovation is coming to the banking industry, and blockchain technology is leading the charge. Let’s zoom in on three companies for a closer look…

  • Mastercard: Daily transactions are mounting, as are the challenges to capture, store and protect all the transactional data that credit card companies collect.

Mastercard is turning to the blockchain for a possible solution. It recently filed a patent for the creation of a blockchain-based “uniform settlement system.” Basically, Mastercard wants to create a ledger to store a verifiable and immutablerecord of data, such as purchase orders, invoices and transaction data.

Among other things, doing so would vastly enhance the security of the data it collects. This is no small thing in light of the massive Equifax breach.

  • Bank of America: It leads all other banks in number of blockchain patents filed so far with at least 39. The patents include internal security tools, cryptocurrency aggregation, risk detection systems and storage, and direct person-to-person payments. Bank of America is working closely with Microsoft Azure to explore blockchain solutions for supply chain finance.

Microsoft itself just announced that its own enterprise blockchain framework will be online by 2018. It’s not clear how soon Bank of America’s patented technology might be ready for the marketplace. What is clear is that it wants to be a leader in blockchain utilization.

  • JPMorgan: Imagine two banks doing business with each other. Each has its own “private” blockchain. Each has large corporate customers. The banks need to protect data about their clients. But they also need to reveal the amount and type of currency, the rate of exchange, and the institution initiating the transfer.

This is where Quorum comes in.

JPMorgan designed Quorum for its institutional clients. Built on top of Ethereum, it features private smart contracts. One of its first uses is as a settlement layer for cases ranging from simple equity trades to complex derivatives.

In its early iterations, Quorum can run transaction settlements on a blockchain with the ability to both protect proprietary data and interact with a public blockchain.

Authorities would be able to audit the internal blockchain for compliance while companies do business on the public one. A nice start.

By the way, JPMorgan is a member of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, the largest open-source blockchain alliance in the world. It has more than 150 members, including Microsoft, Mastercard, Intel, Scotiabank, ING, BP, Cisco and the Indian government.

My gosh, it’s early. But, given all this activity (as opposed to just words), I don’t see bitcoin or Ethereum going away. The rewards of building, accessing or investing in the best blockchains will be enormous.

It’s early, but not too early.

Blockchain technology is on the cusp of overhauling the global financial system as we know it. Perhaps the Bank of America said it best…

“[It’s] very important… to reserve our spot [early] even before we know the commercial applications…”

Good investing,

Andy Gordon
Co-Founder, Early Investing

Can a $10 Bill Really Fund Your Retirement? The digital currency markets are delivering profits unlike anything we’ve ever seen. ​23 recently doubled in a single week. And some like DubaiCoin have jumped as much as 8,200X in value in 18 months. It’ unprecedented... but you won’t receive any of the rewards unless you put a little money in the game. Find out how $10 could make you rich HERE. ​



Source: Early Investing 

AMD Is the Tech Bargain You’ve Been Waiting For

Everyone loves a bargain.

We love that feeling of uncovering a hidden gem that everyone else has overlooked. The mispriced vintage Corvette with the small scratch in the quarter panel that you could easily buff out. The big-screen HD TV in the open-box area of your local electronics shop.

You get the picture.

But even your most savvy bargain hunters have nothing on investors looking for “the next big thing.” In fact, this speculative drive to “get in early” often leads investors sorely astray.

Their emotions get the better of them, as they inflate what are essentially short-term market trends into major stock-trading drivers

This leads to unreasonable expectations and equally unreasonable stock prices.
It leads to irrational trading.

 One of the best examples of irrational expectations this year is Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (Nasdaq: AMD).

Cryptocurrency Craziness

If you remember the last time I checked in with AMD, the stock was riding high on an influx of revenue from the growing cryptocurrency mining market. Ethereum was the “next big thing,” and investors were speculating heavily with AMD’s value despite signs that this fad wasn’t going to last.

Even Wall Street analysts were guilty of pumping up AMD stock amid the Ethereum fad, with several boosting their ratings and price targets to, honestly, unsustainable levels. AMD stock quickly shot into overbought territory, driven by a fad and a wild surge in emotional investing.

Back then, I warned investors that AMD was due for a correction as “profit-takers emerge, and the more bearish contingent in the brokerage community begins to sound off on valuation concerns and cryptocurrency pitfalls.”

This week, Morgan Stanley did just that. The brokerage firm said that “cryptocurrency mining-driven sales for AMD’s graphics chips will decline by 50% next year, or a $250 million decline in revenue.” Morgan Stanley also noted that video game console sales would drop by 5.5% in 2018, but that’s a drop in the bucket for AMD, and investors were likely already expecting this given the age of the current generation of consoles.

You could almost hear cryptocurrency speculators’ hearts break as AMD stock plunged 9% following the report.

The Real AMD

To remember the real reason you should be investing in AMD, we have to look back to 2016. The company caught fire early last year when it previewed several new chips, including its new central processing unit (CPU) chipset, Ryzen, and its new graphics processing unit (GPU), Vega. Both products held considerable promise, and AMD was expecting strong sales once the chips launched.

But both Ryzen and Vega blew analyst expectations out of the water. When they hit the market earlier this year, Ryzen and its sister chip, dubbed Threadripper, not only outperformed competing chips from Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC), they beat them in pricing as well. At the same time, Nvidia Corp. (Nasdaq: NVDA) was touting its Titan Xp GPU as the fastest in the world, but AMD’s top-of-the-line Radeon Vega Frontier Edition GPU quickly stole that title.

As a result, AMD saw its market share in the desktop PC market rise roughly 45% to its highest level of that past 10 years at 31%, while Intel’s fell to 69%. It is also stealing server-side and data center market share from Intel via the increasingly popular Threadripper CPU.

And that is just AMD’s core business operations. When we get to areas like virtual reality, driverless vehicles and artificial intelligence, AMD is already on the cutting edge and poised to be a market leader.

Many of you at this point may be asking: “But what about AMD’s weak earnings report last week?”

And I would counter with: “What weak earnings report?”

Just look at the numbers. AMD earned $71 million, or 7 cents per share, last quarter on revenue of $1.64 billion. Not only did this top Wall Street’s expectations, it put last year’s loss of 50 cents per share on revenue of $1.31 billion to shame. What’s more, AMD boosted its full-year revenue growth forecasts from mid- to high-teens to above 20%.

So why did AMD stock plunge roughly 20% after such a stellar report? Because the company said that fourth-quarter earnings would fall 15% sequentially (even though that’s still a 20% increase year-over-year). Once again, it all comes down to an irrational level of bargain hunting, and an excess of emotional trading.

Investing in Advanced Micro Devices

But you are in luck! This emotional storm has left AMD trading at a considerable discount … and quite a bargain given its considerable growth potential — AMD is expected to see sales grow about 17% next year, compared to 12.3% for Nvidia and a measly 2.3% for Intel.

Back in July, I said I would be a buyer at about $13.25. That still holds true, making AMD at below $11 a steal. AMD could easily be worth its earlier valuations north of $15 as Ryzen and Vega continue to add market share and as AMD moves deeper into profitable deals in artificial intelligence (AI) and data centers.

Putting a $15 price target on AMD means the stock has more than 30% upside through next year. How many other large companies, aside from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd(NYSE: BABA), can you say that about?

So, ignore the cryptocurrency hype and focus on AMD’s core products and its potential with leading technologies like AI and data centers. I won’t promise you a smooth ride, but at bargain prices like these, it should be quite a profitable one.

Until next time, good trading!

Joseph Hargett
Assistant Managing Editor, Banyan Hill Publishing

It’s not silver or platinum. It’s not aluminum, nickel or lithium, either. But this “magic” METAL is found in everything from cars to airplanes, smartphones and computers, even batteries and cosmetics. It even has the power to fight diabetes, depression, weight loss and cancer. It’s worth billions, even trillions. But here’s the problem—this metal is disappearing. The world’s reserves are quickly being sucked dry. But a group of geologists have just struck the motherlode, and the one company behind it could earn investors an absolute fortune as they solve the greatest commodity crisis in human history. [FOR MORE INFORMATION CLICK HERE]

Source: Banyan Hill

Sports Betting Is a Smart Investment

Just about everybody watches sports. And putting some money (responsibly, of course) on the line can make the games a little more interesting.

Fantasy sports, especially football, have taken America by storm. Every football fan is, or knows somebody who is, in a fantasy football league. Personally, I love the thrill of having my own set of players to root for competitively week by week. It creates interest in teams that I would otherwise never pay attention to.

But there’s an entire industry out there that’s being covered up. And that’s simply betting on sports matches themselves.

Back in 1992, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act banned sports betting in just about every state. The only ones that have legalized it are Nevada, Oregon, Montana and Delaware.

Of course, this hasn’t done much to stop people from continuing to bet on their favorite teams. All it has done is shifted the way that it’s taken place. Now that people can’t easily make legal sports wagers, they’ve simply turned to illegal, underground methods.

Just about everybody watches sports, and may even play fantasy sports. But there’s an entire industry out there that’s being covered up: sports betting.

Obviously, there’s no good way to tell how much is being gambled illegally. As you can see, the chart above projects a $15.8 billion industry for this year.

And that’s just in the United States. Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, the firm behind those estimates, states that Americans could be betting as much as $60 billion per year using offshore websites as well.

But that’s on the very low end of estimates. In 2015, an estimated $95 billion was gambled on college and professional football games in the U.S. $93 billion of that, or 98%, was done illegally. Adam Silver, commissioner of the NBA, has stated that $400 billion is wagered on sports each year.

Even sports websites and channels like ESPN and CBS Sports regularly post the favored teams and the amount of points or runs that they are projected to win by, based on Las Vegas odds. It’s not a secret that a large percentage of the population is finding a way to bet on these games.

There’s an ongoing initiative taken by several states right now to legalize sports gambling. Sparing most of the details, the next big step in this process takes place on December 4. On that day, the Supreme Court will hear arguments for legalizing sports betting across the country.

There are 14 states waiting to hear the Court’s verdict that are willing to offer legal sports gambling within just two years. Another 18 are expected to make it legal within five years.

Obviously, this makes a good investment opportunity … if you look in the right places.

Remember, the smart money gets into trends before they become popular. Investing in an industry a couple of years before it hits its potential is not unreasonable.

The best way to take advantage of this potentially groundbreaking industry before it begins is by buying large casino stocks such as Wynn Resorts Ltd. (Nasdaq: WYNN)Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE: LVS) and MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM).

People may not physically show up at these casinos to place their bets. But casinos will make new, easy ways to bet, whether it be through easy-to-use apps, websites or even through texting. They will be the ones taking all of the newly legal bets.

Regards,

Ian Dyer
Internal Analyst, Banyan Hill Publishing

In this exciting NEW VIDEO, Wall Street legend and former multibillion hedge fund manager Paul Mampilly pulls back the curtain on the biggest investment opportunity in the market today. What insiders are calling “The Greatest Innovation in History,” this revolution will mint more millionaires and billions than any technology that came before it. Right now, the current market for this technology is just $235 billion, but given how fast this technology is moving experts predict it will soar to $19 trillion by 2020. But 8,000% growth is just the beginning—and now’s your chance to get in on the action. [CONTINUE TO VIDEO]

Source: Banyan Hill