🧻 Overzealous demand for stuff

+ the game of tax & the next tech moonshots ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ 

September 28, 2021 View online | Sign up TOGETHER WITH Happy Tuesday. According to the Tax Policy Center (TPC), can you guess what percent of US households did NOT pay federal income tax in 2020? a. 21%, b. 41%, c. 61%. Check the answer in the "Trending" section below.  Here are the personal finance topics for today: The game of tax: Using the tax code to your advantage Overzealous demand for stuff—kinks in the supply lines The next tech moonshots

TAXES The game of tax: Using the tax code to your advantage The 'Boston Tea Party' occurred almost 250 years ago in December 1773 when the loosely organized Sons of Liberty organization took to Griffin's Wharf to dump 342 chests of British East India Company tea into the Boston harbor.  In the eyes of American historians, this event remains a paramount example of the lengths we will go to pay less in taxes, especially those we disagree with. This maxim remains the same today as it was during the Revolutionary War, and in fact, the tax code even encourages it. The evolution of taxes Taxes in the United States haven't always been as complex as they are today. In fact, the federal income tax we're all too familiar with today (and also the most expensive form of taxation) wasn't formally established until 1913 by way of the 16th amendment. Other forms of tax followed suit, such as the gift tax, sales tax, and capital gains.  From there, taxes grew to become increasingly convoluted over time. In 1952, the highest marginal tax rate for an individual topped out at 92% and was still 70% through 1980. Since then, that number has continued to decline, and we now sit around pre-Great Depression levels. Source: Investopedia Modern times—reducing your tax bill All of this history leads us to today, where we have more complexities and nuances than ever. Taxes have become a weirdly necessary Rube Goldberg machine. Despite their complications though, the tax code is trying its best to give us some breaks, and the more you know the more you save. Tax-advantaged accounts: Hopefully you know them by heart now. The Roths, the 401ks, the 529, the HSA, and the like: All of these accounts are products of legislation providing exemptions and caveats in the tax code to help Americans save for retirement, healthcare or education, but they can save you money on taxes in a big way too.  Tax benefits for business owners: Despite the big names hogging most of the spotlight, about 99% of America's businesses are considered small businesses, so the tax code accounts for this. Being able to write off a litany of expenses that go toward producing a good or service and employing others is one of the most appealing aspects of becoming an entrepreneur.  Tax benefits of investing: Tax favors capital. Someone who is single making a $100,000 profit by selling their primary home would pay 0% tax on profits as long as they lived in the home for at least 2 of the last 5 years. Compare that to being in the 24% federal tax bracket on $100K earned from regular income or wages.  🤔 But what about taxes on other investments? Take this quiz to review capital gains and losses: Capital Gains & Losses 5 mins

ECONOMY & MARKETS There are still kinks in the supply lines Even though the global pandemic began over 19 months ago now, we're still experiencing its ripple effects today. The world has fought back and rebounded to an extent, but the aftermath of Covid-19 and its variants has inevitably left us with lingering issues that impact the global economy.  Supply lines are one of these things. Although it's probably one of the most boring and monotonous headlines you read last spring, their understated value is becoming realized during pandemic-related bottleneck after bottleneck. The current situation A recent survey by Deloitte showed that 44% of CFOs reported seeing shipping delays cause at least a 5% increase in product pricing, while another 32% reported sales having fallen due to either shortages or delays.  A large portion of the supply lines many companies rely on runs through China, and as a result, many of these same CFOs are hoping to transition those supply lines elsewhere. In fact, 32% of those CFOs claimed they'd be working to reduce their reliance on Chinese sourcing, and 39% want to see their sourcing from North America increase as well. Because of sporadic delays, extra lockdowns, shortages, and increasing prices, we're seeing a confluence of events create a sort of damning butterfly effect on supply lines. Shipping costs have increased over 13x from pre-pandemic levels, and container costs are nearing $10,000 in the US. Source: Bloomberg Zooming out Productivity has rebounded and our attempts to return to normalcy have in turn revealed some true kinks in the supply lines. The pandemic might have been the starting gun, but the shipping race has gotten creative, and the problems it faces are now multifaceted. Resurrecting and restructuring a global supply chain from pandemic lockdowns is not as simple as it seems. This massive piece of infrastructure is no sports car, and now labor concerns—talent recruiting and retention, burnout, morale, rising wages—are top-of-mind internal risks for this quarter.

SPONSORED BY VINOVEST Time to diversify Investing in blue-chip wines used to be off-limits to everyday investors, as well-known auction houses like Sotheby's, Christie's, and Zachys were the ones to auction off fine wines to the wealthy. Not anymore. With Vinovest, anyone and everyone can invest in fine and rare wines. Here's how it works: Investors buy fine wine early and hold on until scarcity value kicks in.  When vintages reach their peak, restaurants and the wealthy alike pay top-dollar at auctions to either serve or simply consume the finest bottles. Which means, early investors, stand to benefit. The average Vinovest client earned an average 17.8% return in 2020. And Vinovest makes it easy—it works like any other financial services platform (like Fidelity or Robinhood). Learn more about Vinovest today.

INVESTING The next tech moonshots Hypothetically, you won't need to pick multiple stocks if you just pick the right one once. The right investment of enough cash in the perfect company could set a lot of people up for life, it's just that this rarely happens.  They say luck is the residue of design though, so even if our odds of picking the next Amazon or becoming the next Cathie Woods aren't great, educating ourselves on the future can certainly increase those odds. Now, large institutional banks might be the last organization you'd suspect to help investors go to the moon, but Bank of America thinks otherwise, apparently. BofA put together a list of the next potential tech moonshots, and some of these sectors may surprise you. So, here are a few genres for your watchlist: Immortality: Far out as it might sound, this is on our scientific radar in 2021, and there are businesses working toward anti-aging and immortality-related projects. Is it likely to come to fruition anytime soon? Probably not, but if you bet on the right horse and it wins... you get the gist. Synthetic biology: In line with the lofty goal of reducing mortality, synthetic biology is something that's already here and in use, but also growing too. It boasts a CAGR of about 22% and could be one of the most important sectors to the future of medicine.  Metaverse stocks: An expanded, more immersive version of the VR experience, companies specializing in metaverse technology have a pretty bright future ahead of them in the space.

ASHU'S CORPORATE CORNER Today's Movers & Shakers Ford (+3.3%) is investing $11 billion in batteries along with S. Korea's SK Innovation and setting up an assembly plant and three battery factories Thor Industries (+3.6%), an RV maker, topped the street on revenues and profits and said that demand remains strong Applied Materials (-3.6%) was downgraded to neutral by New Street Research FactSet (+3%) also topped the street on top-and bottom-line figures United Natural Foods (-2.7%) beat profit estimates but revenues came up short Aurora Cannabis (-2.2%) on weaker sales (-45% YoY)    Endeavor Group (+10%) is buying sports betting firm OpenBet business Scientific Games for $1.2 billion Huntsman (+4.2%) after Starboard Value (an activist Hedge Fund) took an 8.4% stake in the company Acceleron Pharma (+2.6%) rose after Merck decided to buy the firm Spotify (-1.9%) is kicking off a global campaign to win more advertisers to boost sales This commentary is as of 9:07 am EDT.

📈 TRENDING ON FINNY & BEYOND Answer: About 60.6% of US households did not pay income tax in 2020—that's up from 43.6% in 2019, according to the Tax Policy Center (Tax Foundation) As Costco brings back purchase limits on toilet paper and cleaning products amid supply-chain snags, it's renting 3 container ships and 'several thousand containers' to shield itself from supply-chain delays and rising costs (Yahoo) Finny lesson of the day. Since we're on the topic of global supply chains, here's a more advanced topic (for those of you who've asked us for it) on the impact a strong vs. weak dollar can have on shaping the economy: Strong vs. Weak US Dollar 7 mins

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Unsubscribe or change preferences Finny is a personal finance education start-up offering game-based personalized financial education, a supportive discussion forum, and simple stock and fund tools. Our mission is to make learning about all things money fun and easy!  The Gist is Finny's newsletter to our community members who are looking to make and save more money, protect their finances and be their own bosses! Finny does not offer investment or stock advice. The Gist is sent twice a week (Tues & Thurs). The editorial team: Austin Payne and Chihee Kim. Thanks to Ashu Singh for Today's Movers & Shakers. *Sponsors or advertisers offer unique consumer services. We're thankful for their sponsorship to enable Finny to offer free financial education. Here's our advertiser disclosure. If you have any feedback for us or are interested in sponsoring The Gist, please send us an email to feedback@askfinny.com. Copyright © Finny 2021. All rights reserved. 736 Paloma Ave, Burlingame CA 94010

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☂️ Rainy day savings match

+ crypto markets update and the unexpected thing you didn't know you could buy with crypto ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ 

September 09, 2021 View online | Sign up TOGETHER WITH Good day. Can you guess which of the following assets hit a new all-time high 65 times this year alone? a. Apple stock ($AAPL), b. Bitcoin, c. Vanguard's S&P 500 ETF ($VOO). Check the answer in the Trending section below. Here are the money topics for today: Employers offering savings match benefits Crypto markets update Unexpected things you can buy with crypto

BUDGETING & SAVING Employee benefits, savings edition Image source—WSJ Employee benefits are an important part of the evaluation process for job seekers. Whether or not you like the job is part of the decision of course, but a big part of what ensures you and your employer are a good match is company culture, which is often something exemplified by the benefits offered to you. When you think of employee benefits though, what comes to mind? $100 says the first thing that came to mind was the term 401k. Outside of that, maybe PTO, health insurance subsidies, or even life insurance if you're really lucky.  With 37% of adults saying they lack the savings to cover a $400 emergency though, shouldn't savings benefits be on any employer's to-do list? It can't hurt to ask More and more employers are starting to explore the idea of offering savings benefits to their valued employees. In a recent survey by Willis Towers Watson, 26% of 464 participants said they were offering emergency savings as part of their retirement benefits, and 19% said they were considering or moving towards it.  Customization is kind of limitless here. Some businesses are offering company-funded interest rates that adjust with employee tenure, rainy day funds held within 401ks, or a simple savings match. More consideration for emergency funds overall Multiple bills that seek to make provisions for both employers and employees in the area of savings have also been introduced recently. Benefits would include things like making it easier for employees to get enrolled into emergency fund plans, more tax-exempt access to 401k contributions for emergencies and even tax-refund-oriented automatic savings. The 2020 pandemic was likely an unforeseen, yet necessary, nudge to many Americans. We now see just how easy it is for emergency funds to quickly become very important, and both businesses and Congress have noted that. 📚 Why is it important & how much should you save for that rainy day? Find out more in this bite-sized Finny quiz: Save for a Rainy Day 8 mins

CRYPTOCURRENCY Crypto market's resilience In 2017, the market cap of Bitcoin (BTC) jumped from $15B to over $237B in December of 2020. That's a 15x jump, but nothing in comparison with what was to come. Between March of 2020 and March of 2021, BTC's market cap swelled from $117 billion to $1.1 trillion dollars, eventually settling in around $883 billion for now.  That exponential jump represents the bull market roller-coaster ride of the crypto market. Bitcoin brought along with it Ethereum (ETH), which has outperformed BTC almost 6:1 this year—not to mention Cardano, Chainlink, and even Dogecoin.  But when you fly too close to the sun, you risk burning up. Or at least, that seems like a good metaphorical explanation for the cynicism that eventually brought the crypto markets down back mid-2021. Mo money, mo problems Bitcoin rose all the way to $60k a coin back in early April and maintained that range for about a month. Ethereum went along for the ride too, jumping parabolically to near $4k. And just when more and more people jumped on the crypto bandwagon, the market got hit again. During the first couple weeks of May, prices fell off a cliff—Bitcoin went from $56k down to $34k, and eventually bottomed out in June and then again in July to below $30k. Prices then climbed back up near $53k earlier this week until El Salvador's rollout of Bitcoin as an official currency or legal tender hit a few snags, forcing BTC as much as 17% lower that day. Nascent markets are expected to be volatile, but the accumulated response of varying events—El Salvador's BTC rollout issues, Elon Musk's negative remarks, China's crypto crackdown, exuberance over low-quality coins, profit-taking by investors, and SEC Chair Gensler's stance that crypto should be regulated—makes selloffs that much more violent. Crypto's resilience  Despite the event of this week, BTC is still up 60% YTD and only down 3-4% from a week ago. Even without groundbreaking developments back in July, BTC slowly climbed back up over $50k and ETH up near $4k. But catalysts like PayPal expanding crypto purchasing outside the US, some of the world's biggest asset managers like Blackrock entering the crypto space, Ethereum's roadmap upgrade that could reduce its supply thereby increasing its value, and standalone countries willing to make crypto their official currency, are giving investors hope that long term, returns would be more sustainable.  Takeaway. Crypto looks more like it's probably here to stay. So if you're considering investing, do so as long as your crypto investments don't stand in the way of your financial goals, and be prepared for a bumpy ride as regulators are watching like hawks. Understand what you're investing in and invest only what you're okay with losing.

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MONEY TIPS Unexpected things you can buy with crypto Investments, especially crypto, are usually best kept tucked away safely in a portfolio or a cold storage wallet. Sometimes though, it might make sense to use your crypto as a currency. For example, certain coins can only be bought with crypto, and assets like NFTs are purchased with tokens like ETH. Coinbase offers users a debit card to spend crypto from their hot wallets, BlockFi allows users to accrue Bitcoin rewards with a credit card, and the options go on and on.  That's all great (you're thinking), but can you actually buy any everyday items with crypto? Well, here are a few unexpected things you might not have known you could buy with crypto: Coffee: If you have the time to download an app called Bakkt to convert it, your crypto can be exchanged for credits on the Starbucks app. Why would you do this? Who knows, but it's neat to know it.  Art: As mentioned, NFTs are one of the most popular items able to be purchased with crypto, which is often the only currency accepted in exchange. But, big-name art auctions like Sotheby's are also beginning to accept coins like ETH for physical art as well.  Sports tickets: Although still a work in progress, at least 3 NBA teams accept Bitcoin in some form or another, and the Sacramento Kings have been doing it since 2014.  Home goods: Overstock.com accepts Bitcoin as payment without any exchange necessary. So, if you just feel like buying that Persian rug with BTC for some reason, go for it.

ASHU'S CORPORATE CORNER Today's Movers & Shakers Lululemon (+13.5%) beat the street on earnings and revenues b/c of strong direct-to-consumer sales  GameStop (-7.5%) on wider than expected loss even though it topped revenue estimates Boston Beer (-9.6%) after Sam Adams retracted previously issued financial guidance Restoration Hardware (+2%), the home furnishing firm, topped on profit and revenues and raised full-year guidance Warner Music (-2.1%) after reports emerged that Morgan Stanley is shopping around for a large block of stock Macy's (+1.2%) after Cowen upgrade the stock to "outperform" This commentary is as of 9:51 am EDT.

📈 TRENDING ON FINNY & BEYOND Answer: $VOO hit a new all-time high 65x so far this year. That's well ahead of Bitcoin at 17x and $AAPL at 14x, according to data from Barchart. The family that bet everything on bitcoin when it was $900 is now storing it in secret vaults (CNBC) Finny lesson of the day. We've featured this one time and again, but it's worth highlighting it given the topics du jour. Investing is not a math problem, but rather a behavioral one: Emotions in Investing 6 mins

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