Every year, the journal Popular Science releases a special list… It’s a list of the 100 greatest innovations of the year—from bionic arms and pain-free dentistry, to life-saving remedies that could change our world.
Last Thursday, a tech start-up called Square (NYSE: SQ) went public. For investors who got in early, when the company was still young and private, champagne corks should have been flying— After all, Square’s IPO gave the company a value of nearly $3 billion.
For more than a quarter of a century, General Mills (NYSE: GIS) has been a winning trade: If you’d invested $10,000 into the company in 1990 and reinvested the dividends, today you’d be sitting on $217,146. That’s roughly twice what the overall market returned.
The market’s had a great run recently: Since bottoming out in 2009, the Dow has more than doubled. To celebrate, Wall Street’s been partying like it’s 1999.
The Chinese stock market has taken investors on a wild ride recently: In June, the Shanghai Composite Index was sitting at 5,000… By August, it had dropped to 3,000—a nosedive of 40%. To recoup their money, Chinese investors are looking to the U.S.
Last Friday, a British entrepreneur named Cliff Dennett put on a well-pressed shirt and blazer, took a deep breath, and sat down for a painful interview. During the videotaped interrogation, which we’ll link to below, Cliff opens up about why his start-up failed—and why his investors lost all their money.
Bill Gross was once dubbed the “the biggest investor in the world.” For decades, he managed the $292 billion Pimco Total Return Fund—up until last year, it was largest bond fund on the planet.
Pop Quiz: When a company is about to go public, why does it lobby so ferociously to get a top-tier bank like Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan to manage its IPO?
Wayne and I played hooky last week. But we weren’t off playing golf or drinking scotch at a bar… We were in midtown Manhattan, at a conference called Finovate.
Editor’s Note: Matt and Wayne are presenting this week at an investment conference in NYC called Finovate. They'll be taking the wraps off the latest version of CrowdabilityIQ, the world's first "stock-screener" for private companies.