Bharat Kanodia

Fed Chair Jay Powell will deliver his annual remarks this Friday at the Fed’s Jackson Hole Economic Symposium. With the Fed poised to start its rate-cutting cycle next month, any hints on the size and speed of the adjustments will be highly sought. His earlier speeches there, which tell us a considerable amount of how he thinks at a high level about monetary policy, are a good preview. Here are my takeaways -- text and more details in my Substck post -- from his earlier remarks: 2018: Go slow unless it’s a crisis. 2019: Pay attention to the risks. 2020: A strong labor market is not a threat on its own. 2021: Don’t overreact to temporary inflation. 2022: There will be pain. Or not. 2023: Build confidence under uncertainty. Powell often appeals to the lessons of history for monetary policy, whether it’s from the Great Inflation of the 1960s or the Volcker Disinflation of the 1980s. However, this inflation cycle has defied the playbook in some ways. There are several principles in Powell’s first six Jackson Hole speeches that are relevant today, and there are many open questions on how his Fed might apply them. Those are the answers you should be listening for on Friday. https://lnkd.in/eyv6BVT3

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My EisnerAmper Engaging Alternatives Podcast with Brian Hirschmann, CFA, Managing Partner at Hirschmann Capital, shares his outlook for investing in gold mining equities including the greatest opportunities, challenges and more. #goldminingequities #alternativeinvestments #opportunities #challenges

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The SEC has approved an important update to the definition of Qualifying Venture Capital Funds. The dollar threshold to qualify for the exemption, and avoid regulation as an Investment Company, is being upped to $12 million from $10 million. The limit will also increase every 5 years with inflation. $2 million dollars may not sound like much of an increase when considering the vast size of the US market, but it really is a big boost for the venture company ecosystem. Many of these funds operate in the earliest stages of company formations, so $2 million is big money for both these funds and their portfolio companies. The regulation also provides regulatory relief from the requirements placed on Investment Companies under the Investment Company Act of 1940. This regulatory change is in line with the SEC’s stated goal to increase funding for early-stage companies to support a wider range of founders and areas. Venture Capital Funds are an important cog in the venture market, especially those in underserved demographics, regions and industry sectors where larger funding mechanisms may not be widely available. #privatemarkets #venturecapital #financialreporting https://lnkd.in/g48ZdqD7

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John Ciampaglia, CFA, FCSI CEO of Sprott Asset Management USA discusses #uranium supply, demand and price developments, honing in on recent deals geared at feeding power demand for #artificialintelligence (AI). "I think it's inevitable that (small modular reactor) technology gets commercialized and scaled, and that's the part that has been relatively new," he told the Charlotte McLeod McLeod - Investing News Network - Australia News Network during an interview. "We never would have guessed it would have been #AI #datacenters that kicked it all off, but I think it's a very exciting development, and it helps to really validate the thesis that we've been talking about for over three years at this point." Ciampaglia also spoke about the potential impact of the US election saying that while Republicans have historically been more pro-nuclear than Democrats, the industry is now receiving bipartisan support. "Irrespective of who wins, we think #nuclear is going to continue to receive support," he emphasized. Watch the interview above for more of his thoughts on #uraniumsupply, demand and prices. Uranium Stocks I’m tracking: Boss Energy Ltd, Duncan Craib Basin Energy Ltd ,Pete Moorhouse GTI Energy Ltd, Bruce Lane Deep Yellow Limited , JOHN BORSHOFF North Shore Uranium Ltd. , Brooke Clements Toro Energy Limited Richard Homsany C29 Metals (ASX:C29) Shannon Green Piche Resources (ASX:PR2) , John (Gus) Simpson Moab Minerals Ltd , Malcolm Day AuKing Mining Limited, Paul Williams Investing News Network #uraniumsqueeze #u308 #uraniumprices https://lnkd.in/gauqCTBa

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SEC Hits 11 Firms With $88 Million in Penalties for Off-Channel Communications he Securities and Exchange Commission has announced another big batch of fines against multiple registered investment advisory firms and broker-dealers involving employees conducting official business using unapproved communications channels that weren’t recorded through those firms’ record-keeping programs. The commission on Tuesday said it had fined 11 firms more than $88 million to resolve the allegations of so-called off-channel communications. The following firms were penalized as part of the settlement: • Stifel Financial Corp. in St. Louis, $35 million. • Invesco US Distributors in Atlanta and Invesco Ltd. in Houston, $35 million. • CIBC World Markets and CIBC US Private Wealth Advisors, $12 million. • Glazer Capital, LLC in New York City, $2 million. • Intesa Sanpaolo in New York City, $1.5 million. • Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. in New York City, $1.25 million. • Regions Wealth Management in Atlanta, $750,000 penalty. • Alpaca Securities in Babcock Ranch, Fla., $400,000. • Focused Wealth Management in Newburgh, N.Y., $325,000 penalty. • Qatalyst Partners was part of the agreement but was not fined, the SEC said. Qatalyst took substantial steps to comply, self-report and remediate their violations. As a result, paid no penalty, the SEC said. https://lnkd.in/gjPbC7_Q #recordkeeping WhatsApp #compliance #sec #text #texting #imessage #textmessaging #SMS #MMS #imessage #whatsapp #compliance #facetime #Android #apple #google #meta #facebook #financialservices #technology #whatsapparchiving #WhatsApp #business #txtsmarter txtsmarter Apple Google Facebook Meta

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How Do We Resolve Late Changes To Aggregate Direct Loan Totals For 2023-24 Pushed ISIRs? The following was posted to the FSA Tech listserv on April 18, 2024: "NSLDS identified an error with the calculation of Aggregate Loan Totals due to duplicate Capitalized Interest amounts. NSLDS deducts Capitalized Interest from an Aid Recipient’s Outstanding Balance when determining if a student is close-to or exceeding their Aggregate Limits. This issue was corrected by NSLDS, and all affected loans were cleaned up on April 7, 2024. However, since NSLDS removed a deduction to an Aid Recipient’s Outstanding Balance, Aggregate Loan Totals generally increased. Thus, schools are currently receiving revised ISIRs for the 2023-24 Award Year containing accurate and current Aggregate Loan information. Users should contact the NSLDS Customer Support Center at 1-800-999-8219 or nslds@ed.gov for questions about this or other NSLDS issues." According to the U.S. Department of Education (ED), NSLDS is providing the following guidance to impacted schools receiving these updated Institutional Student Information Records (ISIRs) with new aggregate loan balances: "If schools have already fully disbursed a student’s loans for the academic year, and they now learn that as a result of this NSLDS error the students inadvertently exceeded an annual or aggregate loan limit, no action is required unless the students now want to receive additional Direct Loans or other Title IV aid. In that case, affected students would have to reaffirm any loan amounts received in excess of the applicable loan limit before they can receive further Title IV aid. Whether or not the students could receive additional Direct Loan funds would depend on individual student circumstances. For example, an undergraduate student who exceeded the $23,000 subsidized loan aggregate limit due to the NSLDS error would not be eligible for additional subsidized loans as an undergraduate, but might have remaining unsubsidized eligibility.” Reference guidance under "Overpayments Created By Inadvertent Overborrowing and Repayments" in Volume 4 of the FSA Handbook, as well as Dear Colleague Letter GEN-13-02.

25130 CONTINUES TO BE IMMEDIATE HURDLE   WORLD MARKETS   After starting lower on the back of hotter-than-expected core inflation data, U.S. indices rebounded to end sharply higher. Nasdaq and S & P 500 climbed 2.2% and 1.1% respectively while Dow rose 0.3%.   U.S. consumer price index (CPI) gained 0.2% last month, matching the advance in July. Y-o-Y reading of 2.5% was the smallest rise since February 2021 and down from a 2.9% increase in July. But excluding the volatile food and energy components, the CPI climbed 0.3% in August after rising 0.2% in July.   U.S. 10-year treasury yield inched up 1 bps to 3.655%. Dollar index was little changed at 101.72. Gold fell 0.2% to $2511 per ounce.   WTI crude futures rose 2.4% to $67.31 while Brent futures gained 2.05% to reach $70.61 per barrel.   In Europe, DAX rose 0.4% while FTSE and CAC fell 0.1% each. Data showed U.K. economy continued to flatline in July, falling short of analyst expectations of a 0.2% uptick.   AT HOME   Benchmark indices slipped half a percent each, snapping a 2-session winning streak. Sensex settled at 81523, down 398 points while Nifty lost 122 points to finish at 24918. Nifty mid-cap and small-cap indices fell 0.2% and 0.8% respectively. Except 0.3% and 0.1% higher FMCG and Consumer Durables indices respectively, all the NSE sectoral indices ended lower, with Oil & Gas and PSU Bank indices leading the losses, down 1.9% and 1.8% respectively.   FIIs net bought stocks worth Rs 1755 cr but net sold index futures and stock futures worth Rs 177 cr and 2698 cr respectively. DIIs were net buyers to the tune of Rs 231 cr.   Rupee ended flat at 83.98/$.   OUTLOOK   Japan’s producer price index rose 2.5% y-o-y in August, less than the expected 2.8% and the 3% reported in the previous month.   Today morning, Nikkei is up nearly 3% while Hang Seng and Shanghai are up 0.4% and 0.2% respectively. GIFT Nifty is suggesting around 125 points higher start for our market.   In yesterday's report we had said that 25130, the top made Tuesday, was the immediate hurdle.   Nifty, after touching a high of 25113, slipped to end at 24918. The benchmark is set to open near 25050 today.   25130, the top made Tuesday, continues to be immediate hurdle, a crossover of which is required for a fresh upmove; 24753, the bottom made on Monday, around which 34-DMA is also placed, is the important immediate support to eye.   For Banknifty, 51420, the top made yesterday, is the immediate hurdle, above which, 51750, the top made last week, would be next upside level to eye; 50369, the low made Monday, around which 20-week moving average is placed, is the important immediate support.   India's August CPI and July IIP data will be out today.

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Non-compliance does have a cost. Ignoring the rules for insider filings is no longer being overlooked and ignored by the SEC. Today the SEC fined a total of 23 institutions and individuals more than $3.8 million for failing to file their required insider reports. Of all the primary regulations, insider filing rules may be the most widely violated. A lot of people, institutions and companies required to file insider reports either don’t file within the required time periods, or not at all. Often it is ignorance, as many do not know or understand the rules. Sometimes it is indifference, as the SEC has not until recently ever done any enforcement. And occasionally it is outright avoidance, as without enforcement, some feel they can gain more by hiding the facts from the public. Although SEC registered public companies cannot force their insiders to file their required Section 16(a) reports (Forms 3, 4 and 5), and they are not directly responsible for any failures to file by their insiders, the Commission does encourage issuers to help their insiders file such reports in a timely manner. Unfortunately, many companies didn’t take this step, until the SEC implemented the requirements that each company will be required to disclose such failures in their proxy statement or annual report. In today’s action, the SEC fined 2 companies for these disclosure violations. One company was fined $200,000 for inaccurate disclosures about their insider’s filings, while the other was fined $200,000 for late reporting. As the SEC often does, they hope the news of these fines will wake up both insiders and companies to their disclosure obligations and improve the timeliness and accuracy of such disclosures. These filings are important. These fines for non-compliance are not insignificant sums by any measure, yet the costs of compliance in both money and time here are quite small and need to be done. #financialreporting #regulatoryreporting #regulatorycompliance https://lnkd.in/g7ggZ4a5

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Get ready! #NAVday is here on #FundFanatics Joined by Jed Johnson from ORIX Corporation USA and Scott Aleali. ✔️ #NAVFacility to make a distribution? ✔️ What does Institutional Limited Partners Association (ILPA) have to say? ✔️ Is a Hybrid really a NAV? ✔️ Is NAV the new pretend and extend? ✔️ Fly Fishing anyone? #PrivateEquity #PrivateCapital #SubscriptionFacility #FundFinance

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Non-compete agreements have been banned for all workers, including new ones for senior executives with a phase-out of existing executive agreements, with the aim of increasing job production. However, this ruling may also compromise the protection of trade secrets and intellectual property. Key personnel should be allowed non-compete agreements if their intellectual property is at risk. I believe that if non-compete agreements are made for key personnel, they should be properly compensated. One of my non-compete agreements was illegal in Texas because it was made as a condition of my continued employment when I became an officer. The FTC should not be allowed to control contractual agreements with employees who could cause irreparable harm if they could compete immediately with their employer but also should receive due compensation. #noncompete #compensation #intellectualproperty

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Populists are neither neoliberals nor conservatives Bloomberg Economics’ recent summary of the forthcoming Trump administration was only partially accurate: “Free Trade is out, protectionism is in. Worrying about debt is out, tax cuts are in. The U.S. security guarantee is out, do-it-yorsels defense is in.” The populist waves are in fact neither neoliberal nor conservative but both. Populists emerge as broad movements that reflect and channel popular anger and grievances that by their nature do not have a unifying consistent theme. Hence, these movements (whether republicans in the U.S., Conservatives and Reform in the UK or RN in France) are simultaneously in favor of free markets and protectionism; in favor of cutting down the government and expanding deficits; in favor of supporting democracies and cutting deals; being simultaneously pro and anti-unions; being pro and anti-welfare, including universal basic income; being pro and anti-large technology platforms; being pro and anti- banks. The only unifying elements are some cultural traditionalism and anti immigration or as Stefan Zweig wrote in 1941, “a dislike of the foreigner, or at least the fear of the foreigner.” Everything else is optional and transactional. That’s why I disagree with Bloomberg’ conclusion on free trade: “Even in the best case scenario, the swing from free trade to protectionism is bad news for the global economy…If Trump goes full throttle on tariffs, everything from Apple Asia supply chain to GM’s made-in-Mexico autos are at risk.” The underlying assumptions are that: (a) globalization is always positive and all protectionism is destructive; and (b) there is a single unified theme that will dominate Trump administration. Neither of these assumption will likely to reflect reality. First, it has been conclusively proven that some guardrails on globalization are badly needed. Second, it is unlikely that Trump will introduce punitive across the board tariffs or that he will embark on massive deportations and/or meaningfully slow down legal immigration (just witness recent intra-republican debates on H1 visas). It is true that the neoliberal consensus that dominated our world for more than three decades is dead; but the new political and social consensus has not yet emerged. In the meantime, chaos rather than clarity will dominate. One more disaster (geopolitical, climate or healthcare) and people might get really mad and amplify extremes (political, economic, social). However, we are not yet at that point. Hence, rather than expecting extremes, muddling through and relying on guardrails (domestic and international) will remain the order of the day. Views expressed are solely my own and do not reflect views of my employer

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A Significant Nuclear Threat, Right Under our Noses   From the ABM Treaty to SDI, and from the Iron Dome in Israel to a New Star Wars   By Antonio John Soave April 24, 2024   I’m not sure how or why, but most major media sources seem to be ignoring the very real nuclear threat that we are facing at this juncture. The more intense the scenario becomes between Russia and Ukraine, and the more we in the U.S. and NATO become entangled in that conflict with everything from funding to military intelligence, the more we risk a direct confrontation between Russia and the United States. We were reminded of this just last week when Iran and Israel exchanged significant firepower on one another. Gone were the proxy confrontations in places such as Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq, and present was the very real threat posed between two countries. This sort of country-to-country showdown is something that we—in the U.S. and NATO—should try to avoid at just about any cost.   Granted, the nuclear threat has been something that we have faced for almost a century, beginning with Japan in World War II and extending into a most prolonged Cold War between the former Soviet Union and the United States. As a bright-eyed bushy-tailed intern under President Ronald Reagan in The White House in 1987, I not only recall the summits with Mikhail Gorbachev at the time, but I remember working on some monumental documents revolving around the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (“ABM”). In short, this is how the Arms Control Association describes it:   Negotiated between the United States and the Soviet Union as part of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, the now-defunct Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty was signed on May 26, 1972, and entered into force on October 3, 1972.   The treaty, from which the United States withdrew on June 13, 2002, barred Washington and Moscow from deploying nationwide defenses against strategic ballistic missiles. In the treaty preamble, the two sides asserted that effective limits on anti-missile systems would be a "substantial factor in curbing the race in strategic offensive arms."           Source: Arms Control Association online.   As strange as it is, the one name that keeps “popping up” in my mind from the time that I was able to officially work on aspects of the public diplomacy aspects of the ABM Treaty is Judge Abraham Sofaer. But I needed to remind myself of the reason that Judge Sofaer was “front and center” in the ordeal, and why The White House kept quoting him with respect to ABM and other arms treaties.    To begin with, that was a time when the United States—under Ronald Reagan—was trying to advance the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Critics dubbed it as “Star Wars,” a nod to a fictional technology that had little to no chance of ever working. As a result, on October 6, 1985 ...   MORE ... PLEASE CONTACT ME FOR THE FULL ARTICLE. #nucleardefense #militarydefense

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Excited to see Evercore ISI work by me and Sarah Bianchi on Trump 2.0 trade policies cited in Greg Ip's latest column in the Wall Street Journal: "If it turns out that the tariff on China is 60% and the rest of the world is 10%, the U.S.’ average tariff, weighted by value of imports, would leap to 17% from 2.3% in 2023, and 1.5% in 2016, according to Evercore ISI, an investment bank. That would be the highest since the Great Depression, after Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which triggered a global surge in trade barriers." https://lnkd.in/eqRfbqra

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So what does the data tell us -- not what do the talking heads or politicians say? Facts: * In the first two years of COVID, US households increased their savings by $2.1 trillion -- thanks in part to the abundance of free money placed into the system. * In the past two years, US households depleted their savings by $1.9 trillion (spending more than they took in -- no more free money). * Credit card, automobile and mortgage debt delinquencies are now at their highest levels in quite some time, and the trend is increasing. * Inflation is real and it is affecting middle America tremendously -- costs of energy and food alone have skyrocketed. Disposable income is shrinking and the ability for a household to pay their monthly bills appears to be waining. * The overall share of the population participating in the labor force has dropped over the past 4 years, due in large part to the "wealth effect" as described above. * However -- are people now jumping back into the labor market and taking jobs, possibly 2nd and 3rd jobs for some, so they can pay their bills? * Consumer spending is going to be affected and when this reality appears, the economy will slow down. Be curious, look deeper, understand better, make your own conclusions -- stop taking headlines and sound clips and extrapolating them as reality. https://lnkd.in/eTgfaYuc

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