The Asset Entities app. With everyone desperate for financial advice, a deluge of new companies and their influencer leaders are fighting to be the first place people turn to chat about stocks, budgets or finances. Bloomberg
The Asset Entities app. With everyone desperate for financial advice, a deluge of new companies and their influencer leaders are fighting to be the first place people turn to chat about stocks, budgets or finances. Bloomberg
The Asset Entities app. With everyone desperate for financial advice, a deluge of new companies and their influencer leaders are fighting to be the first place people turn to chat about stocks, budgets or finances. Bloomberg
The Asset Entities app. With everyone desperate for financial advice, a deluge of new companies and their influencer leaders are fighting to be the first place people turn to chat about stocks, budget

Influencers peddle advice to novice investors on meme stocks and trading


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The US was already doing a poor job of teaching people how to manage their money. Then meme stocks came along.

Now with everyone desperate for financial advice, a deluge of new companies and their influencer leaders are all at your service, fighting to be the first place you turn to chat about stocks, budgets or finances – at times, for a fee.

Jackson Fairbanks, 20, founded Asset Entities in August last year with his brother and two friends. Over the past year, they say they have attracted more than 150,000 members on the chat app Discord, including a team of more than a dozen paid moderators. They try to serve as a clearing house of tips and investment strategies.

“A lot of people join our community looking to get rich quick,” Mr Fairbanks says, noting that the surge in GameStop and other so-called meme stocks has made many investors think they can find instant returns. “But we always stress that in the stock market, nothing is guaranteed.”

For monthly fees of as much as $50, subscribers can get access to live trading calls, educational courses and chat rooms on stocks and cryptocurrencies.

With the rise of free, fast trading from your phone, demand has surged for information about investing and markets, creating opportunities for a new generation of financial influencers who are rushing to fill the gap in traditional education. And there’s no regulation or oversight of the quality of the information being dished out.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has warned investors about the dangers of putting money into meme stocks based on what they read on social media – specifically flagging the potential for market manipulation online.

Asset Entities tweets stock tips and posts meme quotes and sweepstakes on Instagram, where its profile includes the disclaimer: “Nothing here is financial advice” and “purely education & entertainment”.

A lot of people join our community looking to get rich quick. But we always stress that in the stock market, nothing is guaranteed
Jackson Fairbanks,
founder of Asset Entities

In the US, there is little formal personal finance education at all. Only seven states require – or are in the process of mandating – a standalone high-school course on the topic, according to the advocacy group Next Gen Personal Finance.

Stock market games are played in some classes or after-school clubs, but for most students, learning about money means learning about topics like budgeting, understanding compound interest or opening a savings account.

In other words, students learn about managing existing wealth rather than actively creating wealth. Until now, that seemed like the right priority, says John Pelletier, director of the Centre for Financial Literacy at Champlain College in Vermont.

“We found it didn’t make sense to spend to teach them about investing, because these kids usually don’t have any money,” Mr Pelletier says. “But Robinhood becoming so big is showing us that maybe we do have to teach them.”

These days, new investors only need $1 or less to buy fractions of shares or portions of cryptocurrencies through companies such as Robinhood, Cash App and others. And with a bit more in their account, people can get access to higher-risk strategies such as margin or option trading.

Meanwhile, there’s new vocabulary to decipher every day if you want to understand chatter about the markets from “diamond hands” to non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Dixon Wixted, 18, from Kingstown, Rhode Island, is paying $25 a month for a lower-level membership on Asset Entities, which he discovered on TikTok.

“It’s really valuable information,” says Mr Wixted. “And none of my friends know anything about the stock market.”

A GameStop store in New York City. The surge in GameStop and other so-called meme stocks has made many investors think they can find instant returns. Reuters
A GameStop store in New York City. The surge in GameStop and other so-called meme stocks has made many investors think they can find instant returns. Reuters

Mr Wixted had taken a financial literacy course in high school but found it wanting. “Over the course of a year we barely learned anything besides very basic stuff like taxes and interest rates,” he says. Notably, there was no material in the curriculum on investing.

For their part, banks tend to reserve advisory services for high-net-worth individuals, people with enough money to pay plenty of fees. Plus, they aren’t exactly trying to entertain people.

Bolun Li, 22, had to sit through a presentation by someone from a bank as a high-school student in Boston. It was so boring, Mr Li recalls, that nothing stuck.

Now at Duke University, Mr Li created an app called Zogo with games that guide people through concepts such as investing and credit. American Express and other financial institutions sponsor rewards for clients who earn credits on Zogo that they can use toward Amazon or Starbucks purchases.

It recently added modules for new financial concepts such as NFTs, special purpose acquisition companies and cryptocurrencies. Within two weeks, Mr Li needed to update the courses to reflect changing market conditions.

“We can’t keep up, there’s a lot of stuff happening,” Mr Li says.

While people dishing out advice on Snapchat or TikTok are good at capturing people’s attention, there aren’t protections in place to make sure they are giving out good information, says Vanessa King, vice president at Ancora, a financial management firm based in Cleveland. Ideally, she says, people should get advice that is personalised and from an advisory firm with a fiduciary responsibility to their clients.

It’s easier, though, to follow some free accounts on TikTok than look up a financial adviser. And the new crop of influencers have figured out how to make these topics accessible.

People should get advice that is personalised and from an advisory firm with a fiduciary responsibility to their clients
Vanessa King,
vice president at Ancora

Helen Lu, 26, started a business over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic by turning her finance coaching into a side hustle. The idea came to her after she moved back into her parents’ house during the pandemic when her FinTech job went remote.

She was saving a bunch of money by not paying rent and didn’t know what to do with it. She tried to figure it out by watching YouTube, listening to podcasts and reading books and websites.

“All of the adulting things just seemed so complicated,” she said.

She started sharing what she learned in July on Instagram and created a blog called “Money Minimalist”. Her following grew quickly, showing there was an appetite for this information in a digestible format.

Now she has more than 12,000 followers on Instagram. Through her website, she offers services like a monthly-expense tracker for $10 and investing workshops for $35. With about 30 people attending, she makes about $1,050 a session. Ms Lu offers workshops about how to retire by 35 for $45.

Using a casual style and tone in her coaching is key, Ms Lu says. She tries to avoid using complicated technical terms and resorts to analogies that help her clients feel more comfortable with financial language that is digestible.

One of the most common questions she gets from users is whether they should pay off debt or invest their money.

“I always try to tell people that you need to be careful who you’re learning from and make sure that the information is correct,” Ms Lu says. “But I think there’s many upsides to people finding help through social media and starting to realise that it’s sort of an easier point of entry.”

Then there are always free chat sites, such as Reddit.

Maryanne Chisholm, 56, a painter from Tucson, Arizona, wanted to produce NFTs but didn’t know how. Holding her phone while lying in bed, sick from Covid-19, she turned to Reddit. The best thing, she says, was how direct the information was.

In the past two months, she’s sold several NFTs based on her works of art.

“Reddit is a greatly misunderstood resource for understanding what’s going to happen financially,” Ms Chisholm says. “Reddit is written by people that don’t try to impress other people. It’s just a normal discussion. I like reading from people who are trying to grasp what this is.”

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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Uefa Nations League: How it works

The Uefa Nations League, introduced last year, has reached its final stage, to be played over five days in northern Portugal. The format of its closing tournament is compact, spread over two semi-finals, with the first, Portugal versus Switzerland in Porto on Wednesday evening, and the second, England against the Netherlands, in Guimaraes, on Thursday.

The winners of each semi will then meet at Porto’s Dragao stadium on Sunday, with the losing semi-finalists contesting a third-place play-off in Guimaraes earlier that day.

Qualifying for the final stage was via League A of the inaugural Nations League, in which the top 12 European countries according to Uefa's co-efficient seeding system were divided into four groups, the teams playing each other twice between September and November. Portugal, who finished above Italy and Poland, successfully bid to host the finals.

Empty Words

By Mario Levrero  

(Coffee House Press)
 

Key facilities
  • Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
  • Premier League-standard football pitch
  • 400m Olympic running track
  • NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
  • 600-seat auditorium
  • Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
  • An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
  • Specialist robotics and science laboratories
  • AR and VR-enabled learning centres
  • Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
IF YOU GO

The flights

FlyDubai flies direct from Dubai to Skopje in five hours from Dh1,314 return including taxes. Hourly buses from Skopje to Ohrid take three hours.

The tours

English-speaking guided tours of Ohrid town and the surrounding area are organised by Cultura 365; these cost €90 (Dh386) for a one-day trip including driver and guide and €100 a day (Dh429) for two people. 

The hotels

Villa St Sofija in the old town of Ohrid, twin room from $54 (Dh198) a night.

St Naum Monastery, on the lake 30km south of Ohrid town, has updated its pilgrims' quarters into a modern 3-star hotel, with rooms overlooking the monastery courtyard and lake. Double room from $60 (Dh 220) a night.

 

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets

The Way It Was: My Life with Frank Sinatra by Eliot Weisman and Jennifer Valoppi
Hachette Books

F1 The Movie

Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem

Director: Joseph Kosinski

Rating: 4/5

Emirates Cricket Board Women’s T10

ECB Hawks v ECB Falcons

Monday, April 6, 7.30pm, Sharjah Cricket Stadium

The match will be broadcast live on the My Sports Eye Facebook page

 

Hawks

Coach: Chaitrali Kalgutkar

Squad: Chaya Mughal (captain), Archara Supriya, Chamani Senevirathne, Chathurika Anand, Geethika Jyothis, Indhuja Nandakumar, Kashish Loungani, Khushi Sharma, Khushi Tanwar, Rinitha Rajith, Siddhi Pagarani, Siya Gokhale, Subha Srinivasan, Suraksha Kotte, Theertha Satish

 

Falcons

Coach: Najeeb Amar

Squad: Kavisha Kumari (captain), Almaseera Jahangir, Annika Shivpuri, Archisha Mukherjee, Judit Cleetus, Ishani Senavirathne, Lavanya Keny, Mahika Gaur, Malavika Unnithan, Rishitha Rajith, Rithika Rajith, Samaira Dharnidharka, Shashini Kaluarachchi, Udeni Kuruppuarachchi, Vaishnave Mahesh

 

 

ESSENTIALS

The flights

Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.

The hotels

Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.

The tours

A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages. 

New Zealand 57-0 South Africa

Tries: Rieko Ioane, Nehe Milner-Skudder (2), Scott Barrett, Brodie Retallick, Ofa Tu'ungfasi, Lima Sopoaga, Codie Taylor. Conversions: Beauden Barrett (7). Penalty: Beauden Barrett

Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.

Updated: July 15, 2021, 5:00 AM`