The Purse

Welcome to our #103 weekly newsletter.

“For women taking control of their financial future”

-Jana Hlistova

From The Purse

In this week’s newsletter, we focus on how share owners can reclaim their power in a world where most of our money is invested in fund managers such as BlackRock or State Street, who we have delegated our voting rights to.

But why aren’t these fund managers asking us what we think about key issues such as diversity on boards or climate change?

And what can we as share owners do about it?

***

You can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.

And don’t forget to listen to The Purse Podcast interview with Merryn Somerset Webb, Editor in Chief of Moneyweek, the best selling financial magazine in the UK.

We talk about share power, the fund industry and stakeholder capitalism.

Please enjoy!

I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.

Until next week,

Jana

How can share owners reclaim their power?

UK ownership is widespread but share owners need to become active partcipants

UK share ownership is widespread and it continues to grow.

More women have started investing in the stock market as a result of the pandemic. According to Nutmeg, 40% of new investors on their platform during the pandemic were women.

But besides owning equity in companies and growing your net worth, what does being a share owner give you the power to do? And are we using this power?

Almost everyone in the UK is now a share owner…

..and that is in large part due to the pension auto enrollment scheme. Anyone who is employed and earning over £10,000 per annum is automatically enrolled.

Whilst people may understand they have a pension, they may not understand that they are equity holders: they hold small amounts of the big companies in the UK.

Also, approximately three million people have a stocks & shares ISA in the UK which means they're saving money into the ISA wrapper and investing inside that. And millions of people have personal pensions which they will also have equities inside.

So we are now in a situation where the majority of people in the UK will own shares. And this is a huge change. And one that is not fully understood.

What are share owners entitled to?

* You are entitled to vote

* You are entitled to the annual report

* You are entitled to go to their annual general meeting (AGM)

* And then raise a resolution or vote on other people's resolutions.

The fund management industry

Today, the majority of people do not own individual shares. They own units in big funds, mostly run by fund managers such as BlackRock, Vanguard or State Street.

To put this in context, BlackRock manages approximately $10 trillion in assets worldwide.

And 40-50% of global assets are held by fund management companies held by institutions, not held by individuals.

By investing in these funds, share owners give away their votes: we are effectively delegating all of our power to them.

And the challenge share owners have is that these fund managers are not coming back to us and every couple years saying: how do you feel about this issue? For example, how do you feel about gender equality now and how do you feel about diversity on boards?

And how do you feel about this oil company? Do you think that in order to make sure the world doesn't run out of energy, we should keep investing in exploration?

Or do you think that in order to mitigate climate change, we should definitely not invest in exploration?

These are the kinds of questions that you think:

Well, that's my money, my shares, my votes. Someone is voting those shares for me. Wouldn't it be great if they asked me?

This is part of the reason we see a disconnect between people and companies and turning against capitalism.

So how do share owners reclaim their power?

By understanding that we own part of the system, share owners can become active participants in the decisions fund managers and companies make.

The technology exists today which allows fund managers to ask share owners what it is that we want.

As a share owner you should ask (via a platform or write a letter):

* What are you doing about this?

* How are you using my vote?

* How are you engaging with the company?

* Have you been in for a meeting on this?

* What have you told them about it?

* Have you given many targets or deadlines on this matter? Let me know.

* And add a little addendum (to your letter) saying, I'd like to be able to use my vote myself. What are you doing about that?

As a share owner who owns individual shares via an investment platform such as Interactive Investor (UK), you hold more power.

In the case of Interactive Investor, they will automatically opt you in and let you know about votes coming up (for example).

So lean in and participate. You can attend an AGM, ask questions, propose a resolution and vote on a resolution.

What next?

* Read Share Power: how ordinary people can change how capitalism works and make money too, by Merryn Somerset Webb.

* Listen to The Purse Podcast interview with Merryn Somerset Webb about share power in the UK.

News in Brief

Financial news

* The US Federal Reserve officals see faster US interest hikes than in 2015-2019, according to the minutes. Quantitative tightening (interest rate increases) details remain unclear.

* US stocks fall this week as investors brace for war in Ukraine amid new warnings of imminent invasion-another losing week for Wall Street. Nasdaq 100 dropped 1.7% this week.

* UK equities beat global stocks in early 2022 as traders hunt for bargains. A broad MSCI index tracking UK companies has added 3.6% in dollar terms since the end of 2021.

* UK inflation nears a 30 year high as consumer price index climbs to 5.5% in January (from 5.4% in December). Clothes and footwear pushed inflation higher in January.

* UK living standards fell at the fastest pace in almost 8 years in December, a squeeze that is set to intensify in April when energy bills & taxes are due to soar, BBG reports.

* Fear Index VDax has hit fresh 13month high due to a toxic mix of inflation and geopolitical risk (Ukraine tensions).

Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi & NFTs

* Bitcoin and stocks drop after US President, Joe Biden says threat of Russian invasion ‘very high’. Sources claim that Biden's administration is preparing to issue an executive order on cryptocurrencies as early as next week. The wide-ranging order will direct various agencies to study different aspects of digital assets. (See bitcoin’s price here & ethereum’s price here).

* Bitcoin’s relationship with global markets is only strengthening despite being regarded as an uncorrelated hedge. Crypto continues to mimic movements in equities, most notably the Nasdaq 100 index.

* Fidelity International launches bitcoin ETF in Europe to meet increased demand from institutions. FBTC listed on the Deutsche Boerse Tuesday and on the SIX Swiss exchange in the coming weeks carrying a 0.75% fee.

* Reese Witherspoon plans TV shows, films based on Women of the World ethereum NFTs. The news comes one month after World of Women signed for Hollywood representation with music exec Guy Oseary.

* Music major Universal to develop NFT fan collection. They are working with Curio, an NFT platform for entertainment brands, to launch NFT projects from UMG's record labels, operating companies and recording artists. 

* Twitter now lets users add ethereum addresses as a mobile tipping option.

The Purse Podcast

We cover the following in our conversation:

* share power

* the fund industry

* stakeholder capitalism

* ESG

* women investors

* how to become an active share owner

* and more

Please enjoy! Listen on iTunes and Spotify+

Coffee Break? Read This

* What resilience means and why it matters

* The UK is trialling a 4 day working week-here’s what you had to say about it

* This 36-year-old went from living paycheck to paycheck to making over $106,000 selling NFTs.

We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and @janicka.

The Purse Ltd. Copyright 2022 & All Rights Reserved.

The Purse provides content for informational purposes only, we do not recommend products or services or provide investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a financial adviser.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jointhepurse.substack.com

Welcome to our #102 weekly newsletter.

“For women taking control of their financial future”

-Jana Hlistova

From The Purse

In this week’s newsletter, we focus on legendary investor Jeremy Grantham and his warning that we are in ‘super bubble’ territory which occurs every 100 years.

What are the warning signs and what can investors do?

***

You can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.

And don’t forget to listen to The Purse Podcast interview with Marcia Dawood who has invested in 200 early stage private companies. She currently serves as the Chair of the Board of the Angel Capital Association (ACA) and is a venture partner at Mindshift Capital.

We talk about investing in women & diverse teams, angel investing and ‘what makes a good investor’?

I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.

Until next week,

Jana

‘Super bubble’: legendary investor Jeremy Grantham warns of a market crash

What are the warning signs that we are in a ‘super bubble’ and what can investors do?

Jeremy Grantham, the legendary US investor and GMO co-founder, has warned of a ‘super bubble’ in financial markets, which occurs every 100 years, and can ‘really wipe you out like 1929 did’.

In an interview with Bloomberg…

…he has said that the wild speculation on meme stocks, cryptocurrencies and other high-risk assets has peaked. And has warned that:

* the S&P 500 could fall 50%+

* the Nasdaq could crash even harder

* and the crypto market would enter a ‘crypto winter’ similar to what happened in 2017-2018.

There are distinct warning signs that a ‘super bubble’ market crash is likely to happen, similar to 1929 and 2000:

* An acceleration phase:

* the market gains become far greater than the average

* Small caps detach:

* the small caps in the US eg the Russell 2000 Index moves in the opposite direction to the blue chips such as the S&P 500.

What should investors do?

According to Jeremy Grantham, investors should hold cash and look to buy value stocks (ETFs) outside of the US market (which is the most overpriced market).

And specifically look to the emerging markets. Or even invest in the UK or Japan which, by comparison to the US, may only be ‘moderately’ overpriced.

News in Brief

Financial news

* US inflation surges to 7.5% in fastest annual rise in 40 years. Higher than expected jump in CPI in January puts pressure on the US Federal Reserve to move more aggressively on interest rates.

* UK economy grew 7.5% in 2021, the fastest since the 1940s. But, it follows a 9.4% fall in GDP in 2020, when Covid-19 drove the economy into a steep slump. (In December 2021, the UK economy only grew by 0.2% due to Omicron).

* UK house prices at record levels: In January, the average UK house price on Halifax’s index rose to a new record high of £276,759. That is approximately £24,500 up on this time last year, and £37,500 higher than two years ago, before the pandemic.

* Investors pull $1.5bn from bond ETFs in January on inflation fears. The selling comes amid a sharp repricing of bonds as central banks start ti raise interest rates, in the face of multi-decade high inflation in much of the developed world.

Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi & NFTs

* Bitcoin on-chain data hints at institutions ‘deploying capital’ at the expense of hodlers. (See the current bitcoin price).

* JP Morgan predicts long term bitcon price $150,000 while the fair price sits at $38,000. And their analysts have said: “The biggest challenge for bitcoin going forward is its volatility and the boom and bust cycles that hinder further institutional adoption.”

* El Salvador plans to issue first bitcoin bond next month. The government is still planning to issue $1bn for the first bond. And it is likely to be oversubscribed by $500m (at least).

* Russia expected to regulate crypto like foreign currencies. A draft law is expected to be introduced by February 18th.

* BlackRock planning to offer crypto trading, sources say. BlackRock will allow its clients to trade cryptocurrency through Aladdin (short for “Asset, Liability, Debt and Derivative Investment Network”), the asset manager’s integrated investment management platform.

* Gucci buys land in ethereum game The Sandbox to create metaverse experiences. The luxury brand also will sell virtual items for players to wear in the game.

* Cool Pets NFT drop: gas prices soar as much as 7000%. While the mint price for Cool Pets was set at 0.5 ETH, some users paid more than double that in transaction fees.

* FlamingoDAO NFT portfolio is now worth $1bn. The exclusive DAO’s membership buy-in has increased over 350-fold to 3,000 ETH, or a hefty $8m. The NFT portfolio boasts 215 CryptoPunks and 22 Bored Apes.

The Purse Podcast

We cover the following in our conversation:

* investing in women & diverse teams

* angel investing

* venture capital

* female investors

* what makes 'a good investor'?

* and more

Please enjoy! Listen on iTunes and Spotify+

Coffee Break? Read This

* How to handle stress in the moment

* Managing when the future is unclear

* It’s a potent myth that all women want children-but I have experienced other wonders

We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and @janicka.

The Purse Ltd. Copyright 2022 & All Rights Reserved.

The Purse provides content for informational purposes only, we do not recommend products or services or provide investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a financial advisor.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jointhepurse.substack.com

Welcome to our #101 weekly newsletter.

“For women taking control of their financial future”

-Jana Hlistova

From The Purse

In this week’s newsletter, we focus on investing in female founders of colour.

On Monday, Project Entrepreneur, a UBS programme supported by Hello Alice, created to help close the equity gap that female founders of colour experience when obtaining access to capital, announced its winners.

Female founders of colour receive less than 1% of venture capital (US).

***

You can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.

And don’t forget to listen to The Purse Podcast interview with Heather McGregor (aka Mrs Moneypenny), Executive Dean of Edinburgh Business School, Heriot Watt University.

She is a non-executive director on several boards and received the IoD Scotland Chair’s Award in 2020.

We talk about money and how women can grow their net worth.

I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.

Until next week,

Jana

Investing in female founders of colour

Project Entrepreneur: programme winners announced and $25,000 awarded to 40 female founders

The stats are shocking:

Black and Latinx female founders receive less than 1% of venture capital (US).

And only 3% of the people actually leading investments are Black.

Serena Williams, tennis champion and founder of Serena Ventures (VC firm), wrote about the unique challenges for female founders of colour in her op-ed in CNN Business in 2020:

“…Black women face a unique set of challenges colored by misconceptions of both race and gender. Investors notoriously doubt female founders, typically focusing investment analysis on the potential risks and losses of female-founded startups.

They often assume that women-founded companies are more likely to fail….

Meanwhile, Black founders contend with systemic inequity at each step of their journey. Investors expect to see more traction from Black founders than their White counterparts, and will often question their technical expertise and market understanding…

Black women rarely have a wealthy network they can call upon for early investment…”

But the funding gap starts well before….

… founders of colour prepare to raise their first venture round.

Nearly 40% of early-stage entrepreneurs raise initial funding through a ‘friends and family’ investment round.

However, because of the disparity in median wealth between people of different races, the racial wealth gap, many entrepreneurs of colour do not have access to a network nor the very early capital to get their business off the ground.

Serena Williams goes on to say in her op-ed:

‘Without the network necessary to raise critical starting capital, most Black female founders close shop before their product even reaches the market.

By building exclusive spaces and systems, we are missing out on the innovation and genius of so many..’

Enter Project Entrepreneur…

… a UBS programme supported by Hello Alice, a multi-channel platform that helps businesses launch and grow (US).

The programme was built to help close the equity gap that female founders of colour experience when obtaining access to capital.

On Monday, the programme announced winners of its Democratising the Friends & Family Round program, which attracted 12,000 applications.

Due to popular demand…

…the programme increased the amount of grants available from 30 to 40.

In total, $1m has been distributed to early-stage, high-growth companies led by female founders of colour.

In addition to providing $25,000 in individual grants, each founder will gain access to virtual coaching and other skill-building opportunities.

Some of the winning companies included:

* STEAM-focused gaming for girls

* artificial intelligence-powered beauty brands

* med-tech innovations

* and artisanal food products

Jamie Sears, Head of Community Impact & Corporate Responsibility, Americas at UBS had this to say, as quoted in Business Wire:

‘The sheer number of high-quality applications to our program highlights the inequality that female founders of color face and the financial support they need from investors to continue to grow their companies'..

VC firm Serena Ventures…

… takes a different approach to investing in female founders of colour which is disrupting the traditional VC investor ecosystem.

The firm invests in early-stage founders who often pitch them on a vision.

They look to support dreamers and visionaries of the future, while giving them the opportunity to capitalise on their genius.

By recognising the systemic bias embedded in the mindset, process and decision-making inside traditional VC firms, Serena Ventures turns the process of investing in diverse founders on its head.

They invest based on potential and opportunity.

News in Brief

Financial news

* On Wednesday, US Federal Reserve chairman, Jay Powell confirmed an interest rate hike in March. And did not rule out a series of aggressive interest hikes that the market was not expecting. It is more than two decades since the central bank last raised rates by more than 0.25%. (US rate hike bets are jumping from 4% to 4.3% as Fed's Powell reaffirms hawkish stance).

* Financial conditions keep worsening following the US Federal Reserve announcing multiple interest rate hikes in 2022. Credit Risk for Junk bonds in Europe rises to highest since Nov 2020 as investors turn away from risky assets.

* US GDP rose 6.9% (on an annualised basis) end of 2021 and cements best full-year gain since 1984 as the pandemic recedes.

* The European Central Bank (ECB) balance sheet jumps >€8,600bn for the first time as Christine Lagarde keeps printing money (QE) despite rising inflation, which is currently at 5%. Total assets rose by another €6.4bn on QE. ECB balance sheet now equal to 82% of Eurozone GDP vs Fed’s 38.2%, and BoJ’s 134.5%.

* FTSE 100 outperforms Europe on strong dollar following US Federal meeting. The FTSE 100 was 0.4% stronger at 7,499 whilst the German Dax declined 0.44% and the CAC eased by 0.2%. The key driver for the FTSE 100’s outperformance was declines in GBP/USD which saw the return of the inverse relationship between the pound and FTSE 100.

* UK borrowing figures put pressure on UK Chancellor, Rishi Sunak to ditch national insurance hike.

Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi & NFTs

* Bitcoin returns to $37,000 amid warnings that BTC price needs to go lower. (See the current bitcoin price).

* DappRadar Report: why are NFTs sidestepping the ‘crypto crash’? For example, the inclusion of celebrities and big brands in the NFT world appears to be growing by the day. Also, there is an argument where certain NFTs should be viewed as cultural pieces rather than digital assets.

* Arizona (US) considers making bitcoin legal tender. Even if the bill becomes law in Arizona, it’s unlikely to have much impact on usage of bitcoin in the state.

* Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest predicts bitcoin could exceed $1m by 2030. ‘Bitcoin’s market capitalisation still represents a fraction of global assets and is likely to scale as nation-states adopt [it] as legal tender’. Last year, Cathie Wood predicted that bitcoin could reach $500,000 by 2026.

* SEC rejects Fidelity’s application for a bitcoin ETF. A bitcoin ETF doesn't exist in the U.S. yet because the SEC has been reluctant to approve one. However futures Bitcoin ETFs do exist in the U.S.

* Monthly NFT trading volume reaches all-time high of $6bn in January. Monthly NFT volume grew 129% in January relative to December. Much of the increase was due to the latest contender in the NFT marketplace scene, called LookRare.

* Bored Ape Yacht Club: Eminem, Jimmy Fallon, Steph Curry, Post Malone, and a dozen other high-profile celebs are now holders of the popular Ethereum NFT collection.

The Purse Podcast

We cover the following in our conversation:

* how women take charge of their money

* investing for the long term

* female investors

* funding female founders

* ESG investing

* and more

Please enjoy! Listen on iTunes and Spotify+

Coffee Break? Read This

* Women’s anger is not dissipating and politics as usual won’t solve it

* Feeling ambivalent about your boss hurts your performance even more than disliking them

* Why compassion is a better managerial tactic than toughness

We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and @janicka.

The Purse Ltd. Copyright 2022 & All Rights Reserved.

The Purse provides content for informational purposes only, we do not recommend products or services or provide investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a financial advisor.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jointhepurse.substack.com

Welcome to our #100 weekly newsletter.

“For women taking control of their financial future”

-Jana Hlistova

From The Purse

In this week’s newsletter, we focus on the current economic uncertainty and what this means for the price of bitcoin.

The crypto market is usually uncorrelated to financial markets. So what is going on? Investors are selling their technology stocks and bitcoin.

You can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.

And watch out for our interview with Heather McGregor, CBE (aka Mrs Moneypenny) on The Purse Podcast tomorrow.

I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.

Until next week,

Jana

Economic uncertainty: why bitcoin and the Nasdaq index are closely correlated right now

Rising inflation, the tapering back of bond purchases and rising interest rates provides the context for the falling price in bitcoin

Bitcoin is down more than 50% from its all-time high ie $68,000+ in November. And almost $600bn is wiped off its value.

This is not the first time bitcoin has had a 50% drawdown. The first time was in 2018, then in 2020, 2021 and now in 2022.

It is important to understand the economic context, keep things in perspective and avoid ‘the panic’.

Bitcoin hodlers have seen this before. And continue to hold.

Let’s put this in context

The pandemic has been a disaster for the global economy.

After the markets crashed in March 2020, central banks and governments stepped in to avoid a complete economic and financial market meltdown.

They reduced interest rates to zero or close to it, introduced stimulus and started printing money (quantitative easing).

Printing money essentially pumps liquidity into the markets.

Put another way, central banks buy government and corporate bonds from other financial companies and pension funds.

This has pushed up the level of government debt and the money supply in the economy. And debased global currency.

In other words, the value of fiat currency is falling. And the purchasing power of the average consumer is being eroded.

And, inflation is rising around the world

In the US, inflation is at 7%, the fastest increase in 40 years.

And in the UK, inflation has risen to 5.4% -the highest level in almost 30 years (expected to be 6%+ by spring).

The central banks have been slow to respond, until recently, saying that ‘inflation is transitory’.

The Bank of England (BoE) increased the base rate from 0.1% to 0.25% in December and halted the bond purchasing or money printing programme.

The US Federal Reserve has started tapering back its bond purchases (this will complete in March 2022) and has said that there will be interest rate hikes this year. The first is expected in March.

The ongoing uncertainty in the market…

… is making investors uneasy.

This past week, global equities suffered their biggest declines in more than a year.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq index fell by 7.6% this week, which is the biggest slide since the pandemic rocked the global markets in March 2020.

Bitcoin has now hit an all-time high correlation to the Nasdaq index.

A key narrative for crypto investing is that it is largely uncorrelated to the stock market. For example, as the S&P 500 or Nasdaq goes down, the bitcoin market should remain unaffected ie price is stable or continues going up.

However, this is not what we are seeing right now.

Why is that?

There is no immediate driver for more capital inflows or investing into bitcoin.

The macro investor, Raoul Pal, had anticipated that we would see more institutional money flowing into bitcoin and ethereum in January.

However, the economic uncertainty of rising interest rates and the tapering back of money printing, means that professional investors are cautious (and nervous).

And so we see them selling ‘risk-off assets' such as growth assets ie technology stocks and buying value stocks instead.

They are opting for a more defensive strategy in an uncertain market.

Bitcoin, therefore, is currently deemed as a ‘risk-off’ asset by institutional investors.

Hence why bitcoin and the Nasdaq is so closely correlated right now.

We can only speculate…

…. about what might happen next.

However, once investors have more clarity and comfort around what the central banks will do and when, we expect to see an influx of capital into bitcoin and the price to start rising again.

As bitcoin is a fixed supply asset (with 21m coins only), we know that when demand goes up, so will the price (of the asset).

News in Brief

Financial news

* Global equities suffered their biggest declines in more than a year. Heavy losses in Netflix, accentuated a sell-off in tech stocks.

* The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index fell 7.6% this week, its biggest slide since the coronavirus pandemic rocked US financial markets in March 2020.

* The FTSE All-World index of developed and emerging market shares has fallen 4.2% since last Friday.

* The combined market cap of FANGMAN has plunged below $10tn in latest tech rout. In less than a month, $1.6tn in value was erased. (The nearly 15% plunge in the Nasdaq Index since November high hurts those who got in in March 2020. Those who have been invested since the turn of the millennium consider this to be only a minor correction).

* UK: wages fell below inflation in November. Consumer price inflation (CPI) jumped to 5.1% in November, and is expected to hit 6%+ by this spring when energy bills rise very sharply.

Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi & NFTs

* Crypto market drawdown: fall in prices has wiped more than $1trn in market cap, since early November. Macro investors, such as Raoul Pal argue that investors are fearful of central banks tapering back bond purchases and interest rate hikes.

* Bitcoin prices plunged from around $41,000 Thursday to below $36,000 by Friday. (See the current bitcoin price).

* Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency fell 20%+ to below $2,500.

* UK cracks down on misleading cryptocurrency adverts. The UK government has outlined plans to protect consumers from misleading claims by tightening rules over cryptocurrency adverts

* JP Morgan says that Ethereum is losing NFT marketshare to Solana, because of congestion and high gas fees. The network’s market share of NFTs has dropped to around 80% from about 95% at the start of 2021.

* Jefferies sees NFT market reaching more than $80bn in value by 2025. The bank raised its NFT market-cap forecast to more than $35bn for 2022 and to over $80bn for 2025.

Coffee Break? Read This

* Menopause strains UK workforce with some women planning to quit

* Female leadership is good for the world. Just look at Barbados

* Only two UK Covid briefings are led by a female MP, report finds

We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and @janicka.

The Purse Ltd. Copyright 2022 & All Rights Reserved.

The Purse provides content for informational purposes only, we do not recommend products or services or provide investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a financial advisor.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jointhepurse.substack.com

Welcome to our #99 weekly newsletter.

“For women taking control of their financial future”

-Jana Hlistova

From The Purse

In this week’s newsletter, we focus on activist investors leading hedge funds in pushing women on boards, women-led hedge funds and women setting up VC funds to address the female market.

And don’t forget to listen to The Purse Podcast interview with Ann Badillo. We talk about Ann’s investing experience in Portfolia (US) which is a venture capital firm that is founded by women, for women.

And you can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.

I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.

Until next week,

Jana

Activist investors and women-led hedge funds

ESG investing is gaining prominence with investors

There is a reason why investors Elliot Management Corp and Ancora Advisors LLC led activist hedge funds were pushing for women to join corporate boards last year:

women in leadership drives outperformance.

Last week, Angela Atherton, Co-founder and Principal for Parallelle Finance shared the business case for gender lens investing.

A growing body of research demonstrates higher levels of women in leadership (and diversity in leadership) teams leads to: higher return on capital, better productivity, higher stock price performance and and better risk management.

Investors push for ESG

Elliott, which oversees $48bn, and Ancora, which oversees $9.4bn, have said they are proactively identifying women directors, as reported by Reuters.

Activist investors can have direct influence on companies by shaking up boards via a shareholder vote or negotiating directly to add or remove directors.

As environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues gain prominence, activist investors are working with hedge funds to apply pressure on companies.

Women-led hedge funds

Women represent (only) 10.9% of senior employees at hedge funds whilst total female representation in hedge funds is only 18.6% (2021 data), according to the Financial Times.

Last year UBS launched a portfolio that invests solely in hedge funds led by women. The data shows that (hedge) funds run by women are better are managing risk, (limiting losses) and generate higher returns.UBS has built a database of more than 340 women who are sole or joint managers, or have significant influence over research in computer-driven funds.

As women-led hedge funds often struggle to attract as much capital as their male peers, UBS plans to support women in raising funds for their portfolios.

Women are launching funds

In many cases, it makes sense for women to launch their own fund.

Rather than ‘battle it out’ in a male-dominated firm which is slow to change, lacks diversity and struggles to recognise the female market opportunity, women set out on their own.

We are seeing this trend across the board including in venture capital and angel syndicates.

One example is a venture capital firm called Portfolia (US), which is founded by women for women. Their aim is to activate women’s wealth and has developed a global investing brand for powerful women.

Portfolia designs investment funds for women to invest in the innovative companies they want to see in the world through returns and impact.

And they ensure the investing process is engaging and educational for women within a supportive community.

What next?

* Listen to The Purse Podcast interview with Ann Badillo who is an investor in Portfolia talk about her investing experience.

News in Brief

Financial news

* Last Monday, the Nasdaq index fell 10% from its high in November but later regained some ground. The sell-off has been propelled by surging yields on US government bonds, as investors dump the debt in anticipation of tighter policy (rising interest rates) from the Federal Reserve.

* On Friday, U.S. stocks opened lower, under pressure after a much weaker-than-expected reading on December retail sales and earnings from major banks.

* The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note has climbed to 1.78% (the biggest rise since January 2020). The year started at 1.55%.

* US inflation has risen 7% in December, over the past year, which is highest since 1982. Excluding food and energy, so-called core CPI was up 5.5% on the year, the biggest growth since February 1991.

* On Wednesday, the FTSE 100 had the highest close since January 2020.

* The UK economy has recovered to pre-pandemic levels. UK GDP grew by 0.9% in November, data from the Office for National Statistics shows, as the economy picked up after slowing to just 0.2% in October.

* UK households have suffered the sharpest fall in the amount of cash they have available to spend for over 8 years. UK inflation is at its highest for a decade. Energy prices are surging.

Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi & NFTs

* Last Monday, the price of bitcoin fell below $40,000 for the first time since September 2020. It also reached the highest correlation to the S&P 500 and Nasdaq since July 2020. "Bitcoin behaved strongly like a risk asset”. See the current bitcoin price here ($43,000+)

* The Ethereum price is around $3,300+. See the current price here.

* The mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes, announced that the Brazilian city would be investing 1% of its Treasury in crypto.

* Fidelity adds bitcoin exposure to traditional ETFs in Canada. The bitcoin allocation is being made through Fidelity’s spot bitcoin ETF, the Fidelity Advantage Bitcoin ETF launched in November.

* Billionaire investor, Bill Miller now has 50% of his personal wealth in bitcoin. Miller said he thinks bitcoin is best thought of as “digital gold” with a strictly limited supply and that he’s only recently allowed himself to be called a “bitcoin bull”.

* Ethereum burn rate hits record high as DeFi market jumps. Severe volatility has driven Ethereum’s daily burn to an all-time high,  with roughly 18,070 ETH, or $57.8M, destroyed in 24 hours on Jan. 11.

* World of Women ethereum NFTs follow Bored Apes to Hollywood. It has signed veteran music executive Guy Oseary to represent the project across other media formats. World of Women trading volume is up more than 1,100% over the last 24 hours to over $21m over that span, according to data from CryptoSlam. World of Women had $17.7m worth of trading volume on Wednesday, besting the previous high of $5.9m set in August.

The Purse Podcast

We cover the following in our conversation:

* how Ann started investing

* investing in Portfolia funds (US)

* the investing process

* why women should invest

* funding female-led innovation

* and more

Please enjoy! Listen on all podcast channels including iTunes and Spotify.

Coffee Break? Read This

* A simple guide to the Web3 stack

* Mapping exclusion in the organisation (how to bolster inclusivity)

We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and @janicka.

The Purse Ltd. Copyright 2022 & All Rights Reserved.

The Purse provides content for informational purposes only, we do not recommend products or services or provide investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a financial advisor.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jointhepurse.substack.com

Welcome to our #98 weekly newsletter.

“For women taking control of their financial future”

-Jana Hlistova

From The Purse

Happy New Year & it is good to be back!

In this week’s newsletter, we focus on gender lens equity investing, women in leadership and how to start investing in a gender lens fund.

A growing body of research demonstrates higher levels of women in leadership leads to outperformance and therefore better returns.

Don’t forget to listen to the interview with Angela Atherton, Co-founder and Principal of Parallelle Finance on The Purse Podcast to talk about gender lens equity investing. Please enjoy!

And you can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.

I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.

Until next week,

Jana

Gender lens equity funds and women in leadership

What do you need to know before investing in a gender lens fund?

According to Parallelle Finance, there are 27 gender lens global and regional equity funds available to individual investors. And the total assets under management (AUM) is $3.47bn (approximately £2.54bn) as of 30 June 2021, which represents a 32% increase during the first half of 2021 (as reported by City AM).

* 10 that are global equity funds (invest all over the world)

* 17 have regional offerings.

***

We interviewed Angela Atherton, Co-founder and Principal of Parallelle Finance about gender lens (equity) investing and women in leadership.

Here are some key highlights from the interview on The Purse Podcast:

What is gender lens (equity) investing?

Gender lens investing is a strategy that seeks to achieve a market rate of return, by investing in businesses that demonstrate the promotion of gender equality opportunities for the women, as employees, as business owners and as consumers.

Women-owned businesses and gender conscious businesses require a full spectrum of capital which includes public equity and debt and private equity and debt.

Why should investors care?

Gender lens investing allows investors to derive a market rate of return in a socially conscious way.

In 2015, McKinsey did a study and found that closing the gender gap could add $28tn to the global GDP by 2025.

This is why ESG is growing as a sector.

How does it relate to ESG?

The majority of asset managers and funds are placing gender lens funds under a larger ESG thematic umbrella.

Investors are looking at environmental, social and governance issues. It is about investors who want to fund a sustainable economy.

And equality is part of a sustainable economy.

However, it makes sense to see gender equality as an overlay on ESG. Investors should consider components of ESG; climate change, various social issues, governance with a gender lens.

There potential for further growth in the market.

The business case for gender lens investing

A growing body of research demonstrates higher levels of women in leadership (and diversity in leadership) teams leads to:

* higher return on capital

* better productivity

* higher stock price performance

* and better risk management.

In 2018, the Bank of America did a study of companies and its investment universe. They found that higher levels of women in leadership led to or were correlated with higher one year return on equity among the universe.

And they looked at data from 2005 to 2016.

In 2021, Morningstar released a report which looked at companies in the UK, the US and Canada and found that companies with more female executives and directors had better share price returns.

One of the specific findings was that companies with more than 50% female executive and directors:

* averaged a 3-year annualised share price return of 13.5%

* vs the the broad market returns of 4.8%.

Gender lens equity funds: why invest, how does it work? What's the criteria for companies to be in the ETF or index?

The data demonstrates the outperformance of women in leadership. And that is the investment thesis for these set of funds.

The gender lens criteria for companies in the ETF or index (includes):

* the number of women on the board

* the number of women in the C-Suite/senior management

* gender equality across the entire organisation

* the recruitment/retention of women

* creating opportunities for women including promotion, training

* female-friendly policies including flexible working, anti-sexual harassment.

Retail investors should look at the size of the fund (AUM) and its performance history, whether to invest in a fund with global and/or regional coverage. And whether the fund has an active or passive management strategy.

Pax Ellevate Global Women’s Leadership Fund…

… is on track to hit $1bn in assets under management.

This is the longest running fund in the gender lens equity fund coverage universe. It launched in October of 1993.

They develop an internal index of companies. And this fund invests in over 400 companies around the world with the most favourable gender leadership characteristic.

UBS (ETF) Global Gender Equality..

…is the second largest gender lens equity fund. It is also approaching $1bn in AUM. It is a global fund with a passive management strategy.

They seek to replicate a gender lens index called the Solactive Equality Global Gender Equality 100 Leaders Index and Equileap is a leading data provider. They specialise in carrying out the corporate gender metrics assessment.

They look at 4,000 companies all across the globe and UBS is able to use this index as a driver to their investment methodology.

How can you start investing in a gender lens fund?

* Reach out to a financial advisor or a fund management company like Fidelity International.

* Invest in an ETF (gender lens fund) via an online investment platform or mobile app such Robinhood (US), Public.com (US) or Wombat (UK).

News in Brief

Financial news

* Global stocks delivered third year of double-digit gains. The FTSE All-World share index rallied 16.7% in dollar terms in 2021 vs the huge 24% jump in 2019, the year before the coronavirus crisis. The S&P 500 was up 27%

* The Nasdaq 100 Index drops 4.5% in the worst week since February 2021 as yields rise. Index is now down 5.9% from it all-time high. Investors rotate out of US tech stocks.

* US Federal Reserve officials expect 3 interest rate in 2022. The first interest hike is expected in March 2022. There is rising ‘discomfort’ with US rate of inflation.

* US 10 year treasury yields jump to highest since January 2020.

* US employment falls to 3.9% as more people find jobs (early December) even as employers added a modest 199,000 jobs (evidence that they are struggling to fill jobs with many Americans reluctant to return to the workforce).

* Britain’s stalling economy is blamed on inflation and product shortages. UK inflation is (currently) 5.1% and the Bank of England (BoE) raised interest rates from 0.1% to 0.25% in December 2021.

* UK house prices jumped by 9.8% during 2021, hitting record highs. This is the sharpest annual increase since July 2007. House prices rose by 1.1% in December alone, the sixth monthly rise in a row.

Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi & NFTs

* Major cryptocurrencies plummeted Thursday, including bitcoin and ethereum, after the US Federal Reserve signalled an interest rate hike. With anticipation of interest rate hikes and tapering of bond purchases (slowing money printing or quantitative easing) in 2022, the crypto market is down.

* Bitcoin has hit its lowest price since September 2021 at $41,000+. It fell by 10% in the first week of 2022 (& is down 40% from its all-time high). Bitcoin is currently trading at $41,500+.

* Ethereum’s price dropped below $3,200 Thursday night and again Friday morning and is currently at $3,089+.

* Report: Solana, Terra and Polkadot are growing faster than ethereum did. However, ethereum has the lowest level of attrition. Ethereum still has the largest developer ecosystem, though Bitcoin has fallen to fifth.

* BTC and ETH are heading to new all-time highs in 2022, according to a Bloomberg intelligence analyst. Mike McGlone believes that bitcoin and ethereum will hit $100,000 and $5,000 respectively this year.

* Opensea is valued $13.3bn (raising $300m in Series C) as ethereum NFT market booms again. OpenSea has hosted some of the most popular Ethereum-based NFT collections in the space, including Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks.

The Purse Podcast

We cover the following in our conversation:

* gender lens (equity) investing

* gender lens equity funds performance

* how we achieve gender parity?

* how to start investing in a gender lens fund?

* and more.

Please enjoy! Listen on all podcasting platforms including iTunes and Spotify.

Coffee Break? Read This

* Femtech moves from niche to essential (we know it was never niche)

* Women losing period because of restrictive diets and excessive exercise

* Women to watch in business and economic policy

We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and @janicka.

The Purse Ltd. Copyright 2022 & All Rights Reserved.

The Purse provides content for informational purposes only, we do not recommend products or services or provide investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a financial advisor.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jointhepurse.substack.com

Welcome to our #97 weekly newsletter.

“For women taking control of their financial future”

-Jana Hlistova

From The Purse

In this week’s newsletter, we focus on Beyond The Billion, a global consortium of venture capital (VC) funds and limited partner (LP) investors and their recent report, Our First Billion Global Impact Report, assessing the results of their two-year campaign.

The campaign was a bold measure to inspire VCs to pledge to invest in female-founded companies.

This report found that the consortium deployed 61% of their pledged amount in just two years into almost 800 female-founded companies.

We interviewed Shelly Porges, Co-founder & Managing Partner for The Billion Dollar Fund for Women on The Purse Podcast.

We talk about female founders, access to capital, how to close the gender venture funding gap and why female investors are key. Please enjoy!

Don’t forget you can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.

As this is the last newsletter from The Purse for 2021, we’d like to wish you a Merry Christmas and all of the best for the New Year.

Thank you for being on this journey with us.

We’re excited about 2022 as we continue on our mission to change the conversation for women about money & investing and support female investors, in not just growing your wealth, but helping to build the world you want to see.

Stay safe everyone & we will be back in early January 2022.

Jana

Beyond the Billion: closing the gender venture funding gap and why female investors are key

Assessing the results of their two-year campaign with Our First Billion Global Impact Report

The gender venture funding gap is real.

Beyond The Billion, a global consortium of venture capital (VC) funds and limited partner (LP) investors have released Our First Billion Global Impact Report, assessing the results of their two-year campaign.

What was the Beyond The Billion campaign?

The campaign was a bold measure to inspire VCs to pledge to invest in female-founded companies. It was the first-of-its kind global capital commitment focused on gender lens investing, as per the Beyond The Billion press release.

This report found that the consortium deployed 61% of their pledged amount in just two years into almost 800 female-founded companies—nine of which were recognised as unicorns, with the remainder expected to be deployed by 2023.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

* In under nine months, 86 funds with assets under management of more than $12bn pledged just over $1bn to be deployed by December 31, 2020. 61% of this capital or over $638m was deployed by December 31, 2020.

* Close to 800 companies with female founders received investments. Of these, 69% were mixed gender teams, and 31%  were all-female founder teams.

* As tracked by PitchBook, a subset of 479 of the women-led portfolio companies of pledged partner funds went on to raise more than $4bn within the timeframe of the pledge campaign (2018-2020). Pledged partner funds also reported investment in nine female-founded unicorns at the time of publication. 

* This amount was deployed across five regions, including North America $374m+, Europe $121m+ and Asia $82m+.

Key insights include:

* LP investors must re-engineer their processes to increase the diversity of their portfolios. LP investment profile constraints such as check size and track record requirements hinder the ability of emerging fund managers to attract capital.

* The issues faced by general partners (GPs) mirror the issues of LPs with systemic barriers representing as much of a challenge as personal ones. Fundraising is by far one of the biggest challenges faced by fund managers investing into female founders.

Female founders struggle to raise capital..

…from venture capital (VC) firms, especially if you compare this to all male teams.

This is despite female founder outperformance and their startups exiting earlier at higher valuations per dollar invested.

In fact, funding for female founders declined last year by 3% whilst the overall VC market grew by 16%.

The good news is …

…that we saw a 70% growth in the funding of female founders, in the first nine months of 2021, from the last high in 2019 ie an increase from $23.7bn to $40.4bn, as per the Pitchbook report.

And that compares with a 43% increase for that same period for the overall market which grew from $166.4bn to $238.7bn.

However, the gender diverse teams received approximately $36bn of the $40.4bn, meaning the female founder teams received $4.5bn (only).

Why female investors are key

Shelly Porges, Co-founder and Managing Partner for The Billion Dollar Fund for Women, had this to say on The Purse Podcast:

“Having female investors is critical and a couple of ways. It's critical for the female founders.

…Women check writers are twice as likely to invest in women as male.

Even though, surprisingly in some cases, females have some of the same biases, personal biases against women as the men do. But overall (on average) they are twice as likely to write the checks for women.

So that's very critical to ensure the capital flow goes to worthy female founders.

In fact, in 2021, the number of female check writers in the U S went up by 3.5% since 2019 resulting in 15% of all GP positions at funds in the U S being females. So that's really fantastic. And that helps…”

What next?

* Listen to The Purse Podcast interview with Shelly Porges where she also talks about how she started investing as an angel investor and how women can get started.

* Listen to The Purse Podcast interview with Eva Pascoe who talks about her experience as a female founder and now as a female angel investor.

News in Brief

Financial news

* The US Federal Reserve has decided to end its pandemic stimulus programme more quickly and signals 3 interest rate hikes in 2022, as it reacts to the surge in inflation. (The central bank will taper its asset-purchase scheme by $30bn per month from January).

* The European Central Bank (ECB) raises 2022 inflation forecast to 3.2% from 1.7% and raises 2023 inflation to 1.8% from 1.5%. (Sees inflation rate at 1.8% in 2024).

* UK inflation soars to a 10-year high at 5.1% (for November) as petrol prices soar.

* The Bank of England (BoE) has raised interest rates from 0.1% to 0.25%, the first increase in 3 years.

* The BoE will stop the £895bn bond purchasing programme at the end of December.

Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi & NFTs

* Bitcoin risks correction to $40K-$42K. In the last 30 days, the BTC price has fallen by nearly 17.5%, including a correction from its record high of $69,000 on Nov. 10. (See the current price of bitcoin).

* Ethereum dropped back to below $3,900 to end midweek rally (which took it to $4,100 at the start of the week). Ethereum’s price has been between $3,600 and $4,200 so far this week. (See the current price for ethereum).

* Bitwise launches NFT-tracking index fund for accredited investors. The Bitwise Blue-Chip NFT Index Fund will purchase and hold in custody NFTs from (including) CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club.

* Crypto lending firm Ledn (based in Toronto) raises $70m for bitcoin-backed mortgages.

* 21Shares ETF in Switzerland launches and excludes BTC and ETH. Its largest holding, as of Dec. 13, was binance coin (BNB), with a 31% weighting. Other assets in the index are solana (SOL), cardano (ADA), ripple (XRP), polkadot (DOT), litecoin (LTC), polygon (POLY) and bitcoin cash (BCH). 

* Valkyrie launches ETF to track bitcoin balance sheet stocks. The ETF is long on MicroStrategy, Square, Tesla and other crypto industry bulls. An actively managed thematic ETF, it steers clear of bitcoin futures, sticking only to equities that invest in the coin.

* Sotheby’s netted $100m from NFT sales in 2021. More than 78% of the NFT bidders were new to Sotheby's and over half were under 40, according to Sotheby.

* Adidas is launching an NFT collection with exclusive access to streetwear drops.

* Billionaire and hedge fund investor, Ray Dalio owns bitcoin and ethereum and has said that he believes crypto has a place in a diversified portfolio.

* Millennial millionaires plan to add more crypto in 2022 (according to CNBC survey).

The Purse Podcast

We cover the following in our conversation:

* Female founders

* Access to capital

* Closing the gender venture funding gap

* Female investors

* and more

Please enjoy! Listen on all podcast platforms including iTunes and Spotify.

Coffee Break? Read This

* How to debate ideas proactively at work

* UK’s first VC fund dedicated to female founders

* Women’s wages are now growing faster than men’s (US)

* Meet the 18 female executives that All Raise has placed through its diversity board program.

We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and @janicka.

The Purse Ltd. Copyright 2021 & All Rights Reserved.

The Purse provides content for informational purposes only, we do not recommend products or services or provide investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a financial advisor.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jointhepurse.substack.com

Welcome to our #96 weekly newsletter.

“For women taking control of their financial future”

-Jana Hlistova

From The Purse

In this week’s newsletter, we focus on Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest fund which has performed less well this year due to investors selling high-growth tech stocks.

Global markets have been rattled by the new Covid variant Omicron, rising inflation and uncertainty regarding the tapering of bond purchases (aka reducing money printing) and the economic outlook.

And don’t forget to listen to The Purse Podcast interview with Fiona O’Donnell McCarthy who is a Principal in True Ventures. We talk about crypto and Web 3.0 and how more women can step into this space. Please enjoy!

I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.

Until next week,

Jana

Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest slumps as investors sell high-growth tech stocks

Ark Invest’s strategies are based on transformative technologies and exponential growth.

Global markets have been rattled by the new Covid variant Omicron, rising inflation and uncertainty regarding the tapering of bond purchases (aka reducing money printing) and the economic outlook.

As a result, there has been an ‘ebbing’ of enthusiam for many of the high-growth tech stocks which did well during the pandemic.

Ark Innovation, a flagship exchange traded fund (ETF) for Ark Invest led by CEO and founder Cathie Wood, has extended its losses to 26% in 2021 as investors opt out of tech companies.

As market sentiment sours, investors are selling tech companies because they are (currently) unprofitable, including real estate marketplace Zillow, virtual healthcare company Teladoc, Zoom — the video conference platform, as reported by the Financial Times.

The ETF has fallen more than 40% from its February peak.

In a recent video briefing, Cathie Wood points out that the fund has a 5+ year investment horizon.

She emphasises that the ‘world has changed permanently’ because of the move towards increased digitalisation.

In Cathie’s view, what’s causing indigestion in the market? It could be tax loss selling, it could be leverage in the market place and it could also be algorithmic trading.

She goes on to say, that many people have not seen exponential growth. And they certainly have not seen a convergence of exponential growth trajectories.

For example, consider autonomous taxi networks, convergence of robotics, energy storage and artifical intelligence. According to Ark Invest, this is likely to deliver $10tn in revenues by 2030. Therefore the returns are likely to be ‘phenomenal’ in this space.

Moreover, algorithmic trading is based on ‘what happened in the past’ and and fails to take the future into account. And Ark Invest believes that more than 50% of trading is driven by algorithms in some shape or form.

Cathie goes on to say:

‘Instead of staying home, you should stay connected and stay globally competitive. And businesses need to embrace these new technologies, because they are going to be transformational. And if you don’t embrace them, you’re not going to win…’

Based on Ark Invests strategies, in February of this year they estimated an annualised return of 15% per annum, over a 5 year period (which is more than double the market average).

Today however, Ark Invest believes its strategies will deliver a 40%+ compound annual rate of return, in the next 5 years.

What next?

* Listen to The Purse Podcast interview with Cathy Curtis where we talk about Cathie Wood as an investor (and more).

News in Brief

Financial news

* Global stocks gained $3tn in market cap this week as investors reacted to more information about the Omicron variant. The market has began to price out near-term hikes for some central banks and less severe US inflation report. Global stocks now worth $120tn, equal to 142% of global GDP.

* US: inflation surged to 6.8% in November, even more than expected, to fastest rate since 1982.

* The Bank of England’s (BoE) monetary policy chief has said that inflation is likely to soar to ‘comfortably’ to above 5% next spring when the energy regulator Ofgem raises a price cap affecting millions of households.

* Markets think that Omicron plan B will delay rise in interest rates. Fears of economic slowdown mean BoE are less likely to raise interest rates.

* The British pound dropped to a one year low as Goldman Sachs joined others in pushing back their forecast for UK’s first post-pandemic rate hike amid uncertainty caused by Omicron variant.

* ‘Covid variants’ named as the biggest concern for market stability in 2022.

Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi & NFTs

* Bitcoin is down more than 20% since its all time high and is set for its fourth straight week decline. According to Michael Saylor, the CEO for MicroStrategy, its only legitimate risk is a black swan ie ‘the unknown unknown’.

* Bitcoin fell in price as bond yields rose ahead of US inflation report that could seal the deal for a faster unwinding of stimulus by the US Federal Reserve. Bitcoin fell 1.5% to $47,900 in the past 24 hours, with prices down 2.25% for the week. (See today’s bitcoin’s price).

* Ethereum showed promising signs of advance this week, although it failed to breach the $4,500 threshold. Today’s price is around $3,996+

* On Thursday, Bitcoin and Ethereum fell more than 5% in 24 hours after Chinese real estate developers Evergrande and Kaisa were unable to make scheduled U.S. dollar bond payments.

* Polygon rose significantly, up by 13%+ to hit $2.08. On Thursday Polygon announced it signed a $400 million deal with Mir to expand the project’s Ethereum scaling capabilities. 

* The price of Tezos jumped 37% over Monday night after Ubisoft announced it would tap the blockchain to mint NFTs for its upcoming Ghost Recon game.

* Solana took a beating this week. The leading Ethereum competitor dropped almost 13% in the last seven days and currently trades for $169. 

The Purse Podcast

We cover the following in our conversation:

* How do you define the world of crypto and Web 3.0?

* Size of the market and potential for growth

* What is going on in this space right now?

* Women & diversity in this space (US/globally)

* How do you decide who to invest in starups?

* and more!

Please enjoy! Listen on all podcasting channels including Spotify and iTunes.

Coffee Break? Read This

* BBC 100 Women: who is on the list this year?

* Little change in the gender pay gap, over the last 25 years

* Australian survey: women do 21 hours more unpaid work than men a week

We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and @janicka.

The Purse Ltd. Copyright 2021 & All Rights Reserved.

The Purse provides content for informational purposes only, we do not recommend products or services or provide investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a financial advisor.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jointhepurse.substack.com

Welcome to our #95 weekly newsletter.

“For women taking control of their financial future”

-Jana Hlistova

From The Purse

In this week’s newsletter, we spolight a new female-led business angel group, called Mint Ventures based in Scotland.

Angel investment continues to be dominated by men and in large part explains why women entrepreneurs struggle to raise funding for their startup.

Don’t forget to listen to The Purse Podcast with Dr Kate Levinson, a PhD, Marriage & Family Therapist (MFT) and author. We talk about emotional currency and how women can build a healthy relationship with money. Please enjoy!

You can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.

I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.

Until next week,

Jana

Launch of female-led business angel group

How women can become angel investors and support women entrepreneurs

Angel investment continues to be dominated by men and male networks: less than 15% of women are angel investors in the UK.

However, a new female-led business angel group has launched in Scotland, called Mint Ventures which aims to redress the balance, as reported by The Scotsman.

Based on research by its partner organisation Women’s Enterprise Scotland (WES), the access to capital for women entrepreneurs continues to be the biggest barrier to starting and scaling their business.

Here are some stats from their research:

* Women start their businesses with 53% less capital than men do

* Women ask for 30% less funding than men

* As a result, women ‘are often hugely under-capitalised from the outset’

* And only 14% of all capital raised is going to women-led businesses.

Shocking, right?

This is because women entrepreneurs are up against gender bias from mostly male investors who undervalue women founders and the markets they focus on.

It is why we need more women investors, who are ‘gender aware’, appreciate female-led innovation, have capital to invest and are keen (to learn how) to allocate capital to female-led startups.

And no, this is not philanthropy.

According to key research, women founders outperform their male peers. In other words, investors will see a much higher return on their capital.

How Mint Ventures will invest

According to Gillian Fleming, chief executive of Mint Ventures who recognises these barriers:

“We are on a mission to change that through our educational program to support more women to become angel investors and invest in diverse companies with purpose.”

* They will provide a “comprehensive” educational, development and networking programme.

* Women members will train for six months to qualify before they make their first investment.

* Invest in under-represented sectors including creative industries, retail, and food and drink, which it says are often of more interest to women.

* All companies will need to demontrate a social, ethical or environmental purpose and have clear environmental, social, and governance goals.

* A low minimum investment: £2,000 (even though the 20 founding women members of the group will focus their investments in the critical £50,000 to £250,000 funding gap).

What next?

* Listen to The Purse Podcast with Sarah Turner about how women can invest in startups.

* Listen to The Purse Podcast with Julia Elliott-Brown about female entrepreneurship, raising funding and more.

News in Brief

Financial news

* Stock markets have been on a roller coaster this week as investors are trying to figure out what the new Covid variant Omicron means for the pandemic, and markets going forward.

* Oil price fell sharply as Opec+ agrees to increase output in January. Opec+ has agreed to go ahead with its planned January oil output rise of 400,000 barrels per day.

* US Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome Powell has said that the term ‘transitory inflation’ should be retired. And the Fed Reserve is considering whether to wrap up the taper of asset purchases months sooner than previously planned.

* US economy adds 210,000 jobs vs 550,000 (which was expected). At the same time, the jobless rate fell more than expected, to 4.2% from October’s 4.6%, while economists had expected a dip to 4.5%

* Bank of England (BoE) policymaker Michael Saunders said that he wanted more information about the impact of the new Omicron strain, before deciding how to vote on interest rates this month.

* UK wealth soars on back of rising house prices, pensions and savings. Households’ net worth grew to £11.2tn in 2020, an increase of 8.4% during a year in which the pandemic hammered the economy.

Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi & NFTs

* The crypto market dropped 17% on Saturday. As much as $2.4bn was liquidated earlier (on Saturday), which is the largest depreciation since September.

* Bitcoin dropped below $56,000 during the week but dropped again to approx $47,000 on Saturday morning. (See the current bitcoin price). Investors seem concerned at the emergence of a new COVID-19 variant, hawkish comments from the Federal Reserve and regulation in private cryptocurrencies.

* On Saturday morning, Bitcoin dropped 9K in an hour on spot market selling and El Salvador buys the dip again.

* Etherum dropped by over 15% on Saturday to below $3,700. ETH had risen as high as $4,800 in the week, a close to it’s current all-time high ($4,850).

* Ethereum is defying broad underperformance in cryptocurrencies, with its recent price gains reflecting a surge of interest in smart contract platforms that are being rapidly co-opted by the nonfungible token (NFT) boom. (See the current ether price).

* Rithholtz Wealth Management and Wisdom Tree launch crypto index for investment advisors. The Index holds 36% bitcoin, 20% ether and 4% each of 11 other cryptoassets that provide exposure to the broader crypto ecosystem.

* NFTs and crypto culture takes over Miami as Art Basel goes digital. Crypto-native art is now taking over the annual Art Basel event as digital art collectors swarm the city.

* Adidas enters metaverse with Bored Ape Yacht Club ethereum NFT (an emerging vision of a future internet in which users interact in shared 3D worlds with their owned NFT collectibles).

* Metaverse land sales on ethereum, solana top $100m in one week. The wave of attention towards virtual worlds like The Sandbox and Decentraland started with Facebook’s rebranding to Meta.

The Purse Podcast

We cover the following in our conversation:

* Emotional currency

* Women's relationship with money

* Changing money beliefs

* Racism and impact

* ESG investing

* And more

Please enjoy! Listen on all podcasting platforms including Spotify & iTunes.

Coffee Break? Read This

* How many close friends do people have?

* Pregnant women in the UK fear losing jobs over Covid safety worries, survey finds.

* Why your brain loves it when you exercise, plus 3 easy ways to work at home

We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and @janicka.

The Purse Ltd. Copyright 2021 & All Rights Reserved.

The Purse provides content for informational purposes only, we do not recommend products or services or provide investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a financial advisor.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jointhepurse.substack.com

Welcome to our #94 weekly newsletter.

“For women taking control of their financial future”

-Jana Hlistova

From The Purse

In this week’s newsletter, we highlight an analysis of the UK budget. Households in the UK will face years of stagnating living standards.

What can women do to protect their money and grow their net worth?

We talk to Cathy Curtis, a Certified Financial Planner (CFA) on The Purse Podcast about how women can take control of their finances.

You can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.

I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.

Until next week,

Jana

The UK budget analysis: rising cost of living and a fall in income

How can you protect your money and grow your net worth?

According to analysis, the UK budget presented last month means that households in the UK will face years of stagnating living standards, as reported by the Financial Times.

And according to the Resolution Foundation (a think-tank), households will be paying £3,000+ (on average) more each year in taxes by 2024-25, with the biggest impact felt by higher earners.

Based on forecasts from the Office of Budget Responsibility:

* Real household disposable income will fall in the second half of 2021

* A surge in the cost of living: inflation will average at 4% over the next year (however, inflation is now forecast at 5% by April 2022).

* This will wipe out the growth in average wages of 3.9%

* Mortgage holders will be ‘squeezed’ due to the likely hike in interest rates

* In the long term, real wage growth is expected to settle at 1.5% (with average earnings only 2.8% higher in 2024 than they were in 2008).

* Middle and high earners will bear the brunt ie incomes could fall 2% and up to 3.1% for higher earners.

Protect your money: start with a financial plan

Cathy Curtis, a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) explains why it is crucial for women to have a financial plan, on The Purse Podcast:

‘I really believe that everybody needs a financial plan. I don't care who you are.

If you don't plan for things in your life, you're just leaving everything up to chance.

So what a plan does is forces you to focus first off on your current financial situation. The first step is you look at everything that you have now, and then you start making estimates and assumptions about what's going to happen in the future.

And some of those estimates and assumptions are how much money you're going to make. And at what increase per year; what rates of return you're going to earn on your investments?

How much are you going to be able to save? How much social security are you going to get? When are you going to retire?

There's so many factors that go into it.

How I build the plan is the first step; I send all my clients a very detailed online questionnaire.

I also ask for a whole bunch of documents, their account statements, their health policies or insurance policies, because I look at all aspects of their finances, not just investments by any means. I look at whether they're insured properly. Are they taken advantage of all their employee benefits that they have them?What kind of estate planning have they done?

That's part of the CFP curriculum, the Certified Financial Planner curriculum…We know how to analyse all those different areas of a person's life, and then we make recommendations to improve on it.

So the first meeting I'll have with the client, I call my first draft plan meet.

And we'll look at the plan together. I'll show them how their money's flowing through the years. I will show them what they can do to make it better, things like that. And then in my case, those clients are with me for the long term. So we review that plan at least annually to make sure they're on track…”

Grow your net worth: invest in assets

Assets is essentially deferred expenditure which goes up in value over a given time frame. The aim is to generate returns which outpace inflation, rising taxes and the expanding money supply, every year.

But also knowing which assets to invest in, and how much, is key.

The aim is for your investments to outpace the costs of living and the surge in money supply (M2) which has gone up 11%+ in the UK and 15%+ in the US (read more about money supply and money printing).

With record low interest rates…

… investors are chasing better returns on investments such as equities and in stock markets, such as the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq (US) which continue to achieve all-time highs.

It is not surprising that investors are seeking alternative and riskier investments, such as crypto in order to achieve outsized returns.

For example, bitcoin has (as of the time of writing) appreciated 206%+ in the last 12 months. And ethereum has gone up 661%+ in price vs an overall 364% growth in the crypto market. Compare this to European stocks which appreciated 10.3%, as reported by Cointelegraph.

What next?

* Listen to The Purse Podcast interview with Cathy Curtis about working with a financial planner and growing your net worth.

* Listen to The Purse Podcast interview with Tina Weeks about how to manage your money.

* Listen to The Purse Podcast with Vicky Pryce about rising inflation, slowing economic growth.

News in Brief

Financial news

* On Friday, the Dow Jones closed down 900+ points in biggest drop since October 2020 as new Covid variant sparks market plunge.

* Brent oil also fell 10%+, dropping below $74 per barrel, from $82/barrel on Thursday night on fears that new pandemic curbs could be brought in, such as travel restrictions.

* On Friday, £72bn was wiped off the FTSE 100 as the biggest sell-off since June 2020 after the discovery of a new Covid variant.

* The UK is headed for the biggest Black Friday sales day. The figures show the UK is on track for shoppers to spend almost £9.2bn this weekend – 15% more than in 2020.

* The Bank of England (BoE): the ground is prepared for policy action ie an increase in interest rates (in the coming months). But, the BoE says that must be cautious in their approach.

* Rising Covid-19 cases hits eurozone consumer confidence. This indicates that the recent rise in Covid-19 infections, which has forced a full lockdown in Austria and emergency measures in Germany.

* UK shoppers face fastest price rises since 1990 in Christmas rush. Fears of shortages encouraged people to start their festive shopping earlier.

Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum & DeFi

* Bitcoin, ethereum (and the crypto market) drops amid reports of the new Covid strain. Bitcoin, which opened on Friday at a price of $58,700, is now trading at $54,380+. Ethereum, which opened on Friday at at $4,400, is now priced at just over $4,094+ and is threatening to drop below the milestone price bracket. 

* El Salvador buys 100 bitcoin when the market ‘dipped’. The price of the largest crypto currency by market-cap fell close to $54,000.

* More than 1m ETH has been burned since the London upgrade EIP 1559. At the current price of ether, the total value of the total ETH destroyed so far now stands at over $4.2bn.

* Thursday: Shiba Inu was up 18% (to $0.000044) amid 1m SHIB holders milestone. The meme currency is currently trading at $0.0000402). On 15 November, Gemini (the crypto exchange) announced they would be listing the meme currency on the exchange.

* Christie’s to hold ethereum NFT auction on OpenSea. The collaboration, called "Christie's X OpenSea," will be hosted on the OpenSea website with bidding and payments made using Ethereum.

The Purse Podcast

We cover the following in our conversation:

* Why you need a financial plan

* How women manage their money & invest

* ESG investing

* Crypto investing

* Investing in female-led startups

* Superstar Wall Street investor, Cathie Wood

* And more

Please enjoy! Listen on all podcasting channels including Spotify and iTunes.

Coffee Break? Read This

* UK parents missing out on ‘tax free’ childcare scheme

* Cathie Wood is testing a more aggressive strategy which would be ‘Ark on steroids’

We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and @janicka.

The Purse Ltd. Copyright 2021 & All Rights Reserved.

The Purse provides content for informational purposes only, we do not recommend products or services or provide investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a financial advisor.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jointhepurse.substack.com