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The Rise Of Algorithmic Trading: How Manned Trading Desks Are Seeing Their Demise

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One of the last human points of resistance to the algorithmic take-over of professional trading can be found in the fixed-income trading desk.

The deft relationship business is known for having participants with Ivy League pedigrees and a lacrosse playing background, a data point that a machine learning algorithm recently used when making hiring recommendations.

With an algorithmic transition, profit margins are being squeezed as human relationships are becoming less important. Benchmarking the transition are new hiring mandates at some of the largest banks, a recent Greenwich Associates report pointed out.

Relationships and fundamental market understanding are less important, the report noted, and algorithmic experience and data science skills are now in demand.

In this emerging environment, what are best practices for an integration framework?

When combining fundamental investment thinking with quantitative thinking unique conflicts often arise. Fundamental, discretionary fund managers often creatively connect non-correlated dots and sometimes challenge consensus thinking.

Quantitative logic, on the other hand, is often driven by if-then Boolean logic at its core and looks for mathematical consensus to guide decisions. Mixing these two disciplines can be like expecting oil and water to enjoy each other’s company.

“Relationships and balance sheet still matter, of course,” Greenwich Associates Managing Director Kevin McPartland wrote in a report title that highlights a dichotomy, “Trust and Data Drive Fixed-Income Dealer Growth.”

Trust is a human concept and data is often associated with empirical, mathematically discovered understanding is the point where a melding of the minds might occur.

The integration of the two highlights the new path forward. “But the ability to manage both in a more quantitatively driven way can mean the difference between profit growth and a year-on-year decline,” McPartland observed.

Technology is increasingly becoming an important feature on bond trading desks, particularly for sell-side banks. Fully 91% of bulge bracket banks said automating parts of the trading process was one of their “top technology priorities for 2018,” the Greenwich Associates report pointed out.

Only 44% of middle market participants, meanwhile, felt the same. This group was having slightly more difficulty “complying with new/changing regulations” and was more focused on improving client management tools and data.

Knowing what technology to integrate so as to deliver a near-term positive return on investment while positioning the firm for a longer-term shift in intelligent automation can prove challenging and, itself, might have variables that don’t easily fit into a math formula.

“Assessing the process of tech integration is always a challenge because no technology is perfect, but it is often much better than human performance,” said Evan Schnidman, CEO and Co-Founder, Prattle, a firm that uses machine learning techniques to analyze human speech patterns to provide a market edge.

Electronic equities trading has proven to be highly reliable, but very rare missteps can have catastrophic cascading effects. With bond trading, and any other technology-driven process in financial services, it is vital to build appropriate circuit breakers and human checkpoints. Simply, technology is a valuable tool, but humans still need to be in the loop.”

When integrating technology into a bond trading workflow it is important to set proper expectations that can be measured on a project plan timeline.

Often times expecting the unexpected is a discretionary skill that requires understanding technology’s limits.

“The best practice in tech integration is to remember that technology will not solve all of your problems, but it may be able to streamline the human workflow and optimize decision making,” Schnidman said. “If institutions keep that in mind, they are likely to adopt technology more readily, thereby making each additional innovation less jarring from a tech integration standpoint.”

With technological change coming at an increasingly rapid pace, the imperative is in understand what aspects of human trading can be modeled and what should remain discretionary.

“Instead of fully relying on quantitative approach at the beginning, it is a good starting point to integrate the output of quants and AI models in the human decision making process of position taking and dealing,” said Tsuyoshi Yokokawa, founder and CEO of San Francisco based Alpaca Markets, a firm that in parts helps integrate quantitative trading models into fundamental trading methodologies.

As the last refuge of human-based trading turns algorithmic, the processes and methodologies that drive these projects are likely to determine success or failure to a large degree.

In bond trading, the sell side is taking a different approach to that of the middle market.

Business

How Big Real Estate Moguls Avoid Taxes (And How You Can, Too) 👀

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I was looking around Google for an old article on tax strategies and this five-year old video of myself happened to pop up.

I’m interviewing a tax expert about how real estate investors avoid paying taxes in perpetuity—AND how everyday citizens can do the same thing.

(Real estate—our TEMPLE I and TEMPLE II projects included—has a number of tax benefits savvy investors have capitalized on for years, including Opportunity Zone breaks and 10-year tax abatements.)

There’s the 1031 exchange, of course, which I’ve shared with you guys before. 

Just to refresh your memory, the 1031 Exchange allows you to roll over gains from your last project into a new property TAX FREE—as long as said property is worth the same or more.

But there’s ANOTHER TAX LOOPHOLE that can take your portfolio to an entirely new level by splitting your capital gains into MULTIPLE properties.

So I thought I’d share it with you guys. 💎

You can check it out here.

Let me know what you think. 😎

PS: In our next update, I’m going to break down how real estate moguls get paid from their properties…tax free. 👀
PPS: If you want to learn how to implement generational wealth strategies like this one, you can join our NYCE wealth academy (TRIBE U) here.

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How I run a $300M+ business from the beach…(and how you can TOO!)

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Yes, you read that right.

If there’s anything the pandemic taught us, it’s that the paradigm of “office” and “workspace” has been shaken to its CORE.

Universities are teaching via Zoom, court dates are done virtually, FULLY REMOTE businesses are valued at $1B+, and legitimate Inc. 5000 startups are run from…wherever. 📲

This is my office for the day…

I am actually running our business from the beach, typing this from here.

It’s 4:28 pm CET, which means it’s 10:28 am EST and I am CRUSHING my to-do list.

(And the team will continue to crush it while I’m asleep. That’s the 🗝)

So how did we get here? 

We launched NYCE and our mission to create 100,000 millionaires in March, 2020…just as the global COVID-19 lockdown happened. 😳

As a result, we shut down our main office and set EVERYTHING up to run remotely…

SMOOTHLY! And a system that allows us to outperform competition by 200%. (You can build this system, too. More on this in a second.)

Here’s what we were able to do since then:

  • Gained 6M+ followers across all platforms 📈
  • Add 1500+ new apartments to the portfolio 🤑
  • Grow to $300M in real estate 🚀
  • 105% investor returns 🎉
  • 700K+ community members 🤝

And here’s the best part…

Having team members in all the main time zones gives us a 24-hour work cycle vs. 9-5/eight-hour on-the-clock performance.

This means we get 3x the productivity of a similar company. 🔥

Let me repeat that…3x PRODUCTIVITY vs. our competitors.

Meanwhile our project management software grants us 24-hour TEAM-WIDE connectivity that tracks all tasks and lets us know if productivity dips even a little bit.

There is ALWAYS someone senior awake. It could be Martin in Barcelona…Nat in New York…Vineet & Arif in New Delhi.

All the while giving YOU GUYS wealth hacks and daily content. 🔥

OK, so how can you do it?!

Well, the first step is to have an actual side hustle you’re launching. Not just an idea, a validated business.

MAJOR KEY: Do NOT spend money until you’ve made your FIRST DOLLAR! 🗝🗝🗝🗝

(You can catch a replay Business Launch masterclass here and see TRIBE member Nessa launched her business on the spot and got her first $45K client shortly after.)

One of the easiest ways to start is with Airbnb—you can start that in 10 minutes. Literally. (Here’s a guide if you need it.)

Once you have your business, you build a virtual infrastructure (you really just need two softwares, which are FREE), manage the team accordingly and run the business from there.

I’m gonna put together a step-by-step video breakdown this weekend inside the new TRIBE U on the FIVE key things you need to do this for YOURSELF. 💵 💎

From what software to use, how to build a team, how to keep.

In the meantime, drop a comment if you’re ready to build some wealth and any questions if you want more…

Let’s get to work. 🙌

PS: If you can’t be bothered with video and just wanna get to work, we’re hosting a TRIBE U workshop that will help you get this process started on the spot. It’s $479 $49. 🔥

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NYCE CEO: Apps Like Robinhood Have A Responsibility To Their Young Investors

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Investor and popular Instagram influencer Philip Michael says new fintechs need to take greater responsibility for their younger traders. 

“Promoting financial literacy is a must, but encouraging risky gambling is reckless,” Philip Michael, NYCE CEO, says. 

In 2020, a 20-year-old Robinhood trader killed himself after engaging in risky options trading and seeing his balance $730,000 in the red, leading to a wrongful death lawsuit against the investment app.

“The main apps onboard as many new users as humanly possible, but there’s really no educational process,” Michael says, “and these first-time investors are left to figure things out on their own.”

NYCE—a fintech focused on creating wealth for minorities—wants to create 100,000 millionaires through real estate investments and wealth education.

Through its app, investors can own shares in apartment complexes for as little as $100.

Since launching, NYCE has set records for most new first-time BIPOC real estate owners, buying over 1500 apartments in the pandemic and splitting ownership with its investor crowd.

Once investors are in, NYCE automatically enrolls investors in an online wealth academy (TRIBE) that teaches basic wealth principles, responsible investing and how to spot irregular fads like altcoins and meme stocks.

“Becoming a millionaire is a function of time and habit, not luck and one-time scores,” Michael says. “The micro-investments are really just the gateway drug to that wealth mindset.”

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