Welcome to our #84 weekly newsletter.
“For women taking control of their financial future”
-Jana Hlistova
From The Purse
In this week’s newsletter, we focus on Verve Super: a pension startup in Australia which has recently raised funding from female investors, and specifically from first-time female investors.
And Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest has sold $266m of Tesla shares this month. Given that Tesla shares have hit new all-time highs across multiple months, we ask why?
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
Verve Super: female investors invest in female-led pension startup
Women (and men) investing in women is smart business
Verve Super, a pension fund in Australia has recently raised funding and did so by actively seeking out female investors, with a specific focus on first-time female investors.
The female-founded startup has raised AUS $2.6m from first time female investors including Carol Schwartz and other businesswomen, lawyers and activists, as reported by Women’s Agenda.
Co-founded by Christina Hobbs, Alex Andrews and Zoe Lamont, Verve now has more than 5000 members and manages close to AUS $180m in funds.
A passion for women’s economic equality
Verve’s mission is to ‘build the wealth of women and be a destination for women who want to build wealth (and).. particularly, to do so through ethical investment’.
From the outset, they were seeking female investors who aligned with their mission to close the gender wealth gap, through impact.
And by doing so, they avoided the risk of not getting funding from the venture capital (VC) industry whose primary focus is to find ‘the next billion-dollar unicorn’.
It is not uncommon for female-led
…and impact-focused startups to clash with the standard (read old school) male-dominated VC industry.
The industry often lacks alternate perspectives, a gender lens or even a willingness and openness to examine an entirely new market and a new way of doing business, which serves a very different customer-namely women.
This is in large part because the industry still has very few female VC investors (and lacks diversity in general).
In fact, in US and Canada, women make up a mere 13-15% of VC partners (the figures are similar in the UK).
In many respects, it is easier for women to start their own fund, than it is to join an established male-dominated VC firm.
Female investors are crucial…
…to women getting funding for their startups.
Based on research, women invest in female founders three times the rate men do. They also apply a new lens to investing and represent the lived experience and perspective of 51% of the population.
Women will appreciate products and services aimed at the female market in a way male investors simply can not -unless they invest the time and do the research. And many simply do not.
Given what we know…
…it is not surprising that Verve Super have recently announced they would become the first pension fund (in Australia) to allocate capital to towards companies that meet gender equality criteria.
They have recently launched the Verve Gender Equality Investment Index which tracks metrics such as gender pay parity and the number of women in leadership.
Research shows that startups and companies which have gender diversity at the senior level outperform those that do not.
Therefore investing with a gender lens is simply smart business.
News in Brief
Financial news
The US Federal Reserve ramps up balance sheet expansion. Total assets rose by $91.5bn past week, most since July, to hit fresh ATH at $8,448.8bn. Fed balance sheet now equal to 37.2% of US's GDP vs BoE's 38.8%, #ECB's 79.6%, BoJ's 133.7%.
US inflation rate is at 5.3% in August. However core CPI fell to 4%, 0.2% below expectations.
Equity inflows in 2021 top last two decades combined.Global investors are pouring more money into global equities in 2021 than between 2001 and 2020 combined, says Bank of America, stoking bubble fears.
Property giant China Evergrande Group has said that it cannot sell properties and other assets fast enough to service its massive $300bn debts. China's junk bond yields keep rising to 14.4% due to fears of an Evergrande default could trigger a domino effect.
UK inflation rises to 3.2% from July’s 2%. This is the highest figure in almost a decade ie it is the largest increase in annual rate from one month to next since records began.
UK job vacancies hit record high of 1m as payrolls rebound to pre-Covid levels.
Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum & DeFi
The price of Ethereum has rallied to $3,600+. This is still 16.7% away from the asset’s all-time of $4,356 recorded on May 12 this year. The price has since dropped and is currently at $3,400+).
Bitcoin fund raised by NYDIG has raised nearly $17m to date. This provides an alternative and efficient way to invest in Bitcoin.
MicroStrategy takes its Bitcoin holdings to 114,000 BTC ($5.1bn). The firm spent $3.16bn on this entire portfolio, which has a current value of $5.1bn- a 42% gain.
Crypo miner Argo Blockchain launches IPO on Nasdaq. With a last closing price for Argo’s ordinary shares of £1.334, a successful IPO could raise as much as £100m.
Solana’s market value falls to $20bn after 17hour outage. This was a 35% drop from last week’s record high following a network outage (which could bolster the case for more established platforms like Ethereum).
Avalanche Foundation launches $230m in funding, AVAX hits new all-time high. It enters the list of top fifteen cryptocurrencies as its gains past $65. Since its launch in September 2020, Avalanche has emerged to be the fastest-growing blockchain ecosystem.
Hedge-fund billionaire Ray Dalio says that regulators will ‘kill’ bitcoin if it becomes too successful.
Cathie Wood has sold $266m of Tesla shares this month. Why?
Tesla shares have hit new all-time highs across multiple months. Why sell now?
Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest has sold a total of $266m of Tesla shares (in September), as reported by Bloomberg.
This is despite the Tesla share price at multi-month highs. And Cathie’s target stock price target approximately 300% ($3,000 per share) above Wednesday’s stock price (when she sold $62 million of the electric-car maker).
The firm's flagship ARK Innovation ETF counts Tesla as its top holding at 10.49% of the ETF's holdings. (The ETF is actively managed, which means that it does not passively follow the index or market).
So why is Cathie Wood selling Tesla shares?
In an interview with CNBC, Cathie Wood commented on Tesla’s ‘exceptionally volatile trading patterns’ and the Ark Invest group ‘trades around the volatility’.
She goes on to say: ‘..we naturally just take profits because we know we’re going to get another opportunity associated with controversy to buy the stock lower.’
In other words, Cathie Wood may consider the Tesla share price to be overhyped or overvalued within the context of what is going on in the finanical markets and the global economy.
Global markets are being propped up by central banks as they continue to pump more liquidity into the global market. Investor sentiment in the US is turning negative. And recently, China has cracked down on the technology sector with regulation.
Moreover, Tesla has been caught up…
.. in the global supply-chain problems affecting businesses in the US and Europe. Tesla CEO, Elon Musk tweeted in early September that the new Roadster model will be delayed until 2023.
Coffee Break? Read This
We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and @janicka.
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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.
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