USA Finance

35% - payment history.
30% - amounts owed.
15% - length of credit history.
10% - new credit.
10% - types of credit use.

-Having too low of a credit will prevent qualifying for any type of credit card.
-Paying your utility bills can improve your credit score.
-Carrying a balance on your credit card each month is a good way to increase your credit score.
-Credit checks by a business or company cannot affect their credit score.
-Checking their credit will negatively affect their credit score.

So the above 5 are all false, and are listed in order from highest % of the American population that believed in that myth.

However, note that for the 2nd 1, making credit card payments on time can improve credit scores.

Another widely believed credit myth is that approaching your credit limit has no effect on your credit score. For the same reason canceling unused cards won’t directly improve your credit score, approaching your limit increases your credit utilization ratio. A common rule of thumb is to try keeping your credit utilization under 30%.

The VantageScore — a competitor to FICO, created in 2006 by the 3 main credit bureaus.
The FICO Score — a score calculated with software from Fair Isaac Corporation (FICO) and used in 90% of lending decisions.
These 3 credit bureaus: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, collect financial information about you, like your payment history, and put them in a credit report.
The VantageScore or FICO algorithms are then applied to those reports to determine your credit score.

Both VantageScore and FICO scores span from a low of 300 to a high of 850. They are then split into ranges, based on how low your credit score is to how high it is.

Excellent: 781 to 850
Good: 661 to 780
Fair: 601 to 660
Poor: 500 to 600
Very Poor: 300 to 499
FICO credit score ranges are:

Exceptional: 800+
Very Good: 740 to 799
Good: 670 to 739
Fair: 580 to 699
Poor: 579 and below

The mean and median savings of Americans, as of Dec. 21, 2022, according to BankRate.com:

	Median savings bank account balance	Average savings bank account balance
White	$8,200	$51,510
Black	$1,510	$13,270
Hispanic	$1,950	$11,860
Other	$5,000	$43,890

However, according to the FDIC for June 2019, Americans actually have an average of $183,200 in savings. That number includes all bank accounts and retirement accounts. Although this sounds promising, across all households, 29% of Americans have less than $1,000 in savings. The average for checking account, is $11,970, for savings $34,730, for CDs $95,600, and for retirement accounts (IRA, 401(k), etc.) $287,736. But, this does not mean the average American has all these accounts. Only 7% of Americans have CDs, 51% having a savings, and 83% have a checkings, while 52% have a retirement account. Lastly, the average for money market accounts is $74,970, but 18% of Americans have 1. If you add them all up, it comes up to $183,200.

In 1970, the richest 5% earned 16.6% of all income. By 2021, the top 5% took home 23.5% of income.

In the early 1990s, the top 1% held about 23% of the nation's wealth, while the bottom 50% had 3.5%. In Q1 2024, the top 1% had 30% of the nation's wealth, while the bottom 50% held 2.5%.

Recent Federal Reserve data reveals that America's wealthiest 1%, with assets exceeding $11 million, amassed a record $44.6 trillion in wealth by the end of the 4th quarter of 2023.

How much do you need to join the 1%?
In the U.S. specifically, the forthcoming 2024 wealth report by Knight Frank reveals that individuals aiming to join the prestigious top 1% now need to possess a minimum net worth of $5.8 million, a 12% increase from the 2023's requirement of $5.1 million, and $4.4 million in 2022.

Jan. 2025: the average wealth of the top 0.9% is around $21.83 million, while the top 0.1% have an approximate net worth of $158.65 million, according to Federal Reserve Economic data.

Monaco stands as the most challenging country to ascend to the ranks of the wealthiest, at $12.9 million: an increase of 3.2% from the preceding year. Following closely behind, Luxembourg and Switzerland at $10.83 million and $8.5 million. These figures emerge from the research conducted by Knight Frank, as initially disclosed by Bloomberg.

Baby boomers are the wealthiest generation in the U.S. in 2024, with Federal Reserve data from Q3 2023 indicating those over 55 own 72% of wealth in America, with those over 70 holding 30% of all wealth. (Most of them are unburdened by student loans and have paid off their houses.). Younger generations are lagging behind, with the Fed data from Q3 2023 showing 25% of American households aged 40 to 54 own just 20% of the nation's wealth, while those under 40 have under 7%.

In June 2021, the CEO of Chase Private Bank, had said there's only 1.8 million people in the U.S. that are worth $10 million or more.

The average retirement savings balance for millennials is $62,000, according to a Fidelity report for Q2 2024. Millennials are people born between 1981 and 1996, Gen X are individuals born between 1965-1980 at $182,100, Baby Boomers born 1946-1964, at $242,200, and Gen Z, born 1997-2012, at $12,000.

April 2025, GoBankingRates said the average monthly spend for American households is roughly $8,500, although the most recent Consumer Expenditure Survey from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics put the figure closer to $6,440.

In Oct. 2019, economists calculate richest 400 families in the U.S. paid an average tax rate of 23% while the bottom half of households paid a rate of 24.2%. Taxes on the rich have been falling for decades. In 1960 the 400 richest families paid as much as 56% in taxes, in 1980 to 40%.

The NYSE runs for 6.5 hours, at where it is 9:30 a.m. in New York and 6:30 a.m. in California, to 4 p.m. in New York while 1 p.m. in California. Some terms:

DOW = a select 30 stocks from big companies.
S&P 500 = select large 500 companies, totalling about 70% of the entire equity.
NASDAQ = select stocks of >4,000 companies.

The price of 1 share is called NAV (net asset value). The formula is total assets - liabilities / outstanding shares.

If you keep an investment longer than 1 year, you’ll pay a lower tax rate. Short-term investments sold under 12 months can get taxed up to 37%, depending on your income bracket, where longer-term investments are capped at 20%.

Trivia: While the stock market crash of 1929 that named the Great Depression is considered to have happened on Oct. 24 and Oct. 29 (Black Thursday and Black Tuesday), the market only lost 11.9% of its value in 1929. The following 3 years were devastating, in which the Dow Jones plummeted from a high of 381.17 in Sept. 1929 to 41.22 in July 1932, a 89% decrease.

1 easy rate to remember is 12%. For every $1,000 you put in a bank or stock that pays dividend, being paid $10/month, is 12% interest rate or dividend rate. And the reason it is 12% rather than some 10 number, is because there's 12 months in a year.

However, finding 12% rate is not something typical to be found from a bank, but found from a stock that pays dividends. When the U.S. Federal Reserve starting raise interest rates in 2022, banks hit a peak of about 5% in early 2023 (for CD accounts).

Rule of 72 can be used to find how long it takes to double your money. Rule of 72 is associated with 8% rate.

72 / rate% = number of years to double. 72/8% = 9 years. However, to have more accuracy, add 1 to 72 for every 3% greater than 8, and subtract 1 for every 3% less than 8.

Therefore, use 73/11% and 71/5% to calculate the years to double instead of dividing from 72.

Many cards offered by Visa and Mastercard only require a "fair" credit rating of 630, whereas most American Express cards require applicants to have a "good" credit score of at least 670 to qualify. American Express is both a card issuer and a payment network, whereas Visa and Mastercard are only payment networks (cards are issued by banks like Chase and Bank of America).

American Express also charges merchants more than Visa and Mastercard. The actual rates vary depending on several factors, but American Express charges retailers around 3% of each sale, while Visa and MasterCard charge around 2% on average.

	Visa	Mastercard	Amex
Cards in U.S. circulation 2019	333.1 million	243 million	54.7 million
Card transactions in 2019	185.5 trillion	108.4 trillion	8.8 trillion

If you want a card specific to the hotel or airline you frequently use, you might be restricted to certain networks. For example, American Express is the only network that offers Delta and Hilton cards. United and Southwest cards are only offered on Visa. IHG or Hawaiian Airlines card only with Mastercard. (Note: in Jan. 2024, Delta CEO has said Delta will generate over $7 billion in revenue from the AmEx cards, in return for mileage points.).

American Express accounts for 22.9% of the total dollar volume of domestic credit card transactions (as of 2016) with 56.4 million cards in force in the U.S. and 121.7 million cards globally (as of 2021). As of Dec. 31, 2022, the average annual spending was $23,496.

In 2019, Discover is the 3rd largest credit card brand in the U.S. based on the number of cards in circulation, behind Visa and Mastercard, with 57 million cardholders.

In 2016, the largest credit card issuer by purchase volume, are American Express, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, then Capital One. In 2020, there were 1.09 billion credit cards in circulation in the U.S and 72.5% of adults (187.3 million) in the country had at least 1 credit card, according to Nilson. However, according to CNBC, 65% of Americans owned a credit card in 2019, which increased to 69% in 2023. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta estimates that 75.5% of consumers have at least 1 credit card in 2018.

As of May 2024, Visa and Mastercard process about 83% of U.S. credit cards. If Capital One and Discover merge, they will become the largest credit card in the U.S., at 22% of the market. And because they block cards from using any network besides their own, then they can set the price of the swipe fees that every retailer must pay.

Merchants in the U.S. paid around $93 billion in Visa and Mastercard fees in 2022, according to the Nilson Report. That number was $33 billion in 2012.

For all 4 types of credit cards (Discover and AmEx), hit $172 billion in 2023 for swipe fees, which has more than doubled from 2014.

Visa was founded in 1958 by Bank of America (BofA) as the BankAmericard credit card program. In response to competitor Master Charge (now Mastercard), BofA began to license the BankAmericard program to other financial institutions in 1966. By 1970, BofA gave up direct control of the BankAmericard program, forming a cooperative with the other various BankAmericard issuer banks to take over its management. It was then renamed Visa in 1976.

Both Visa and Mastercard have been sued from a class-action lawsuit filed in Jan. 1996 for debit card swipe fee price fixing. The litigation cites several retail giants as plaintiffs, including Wal-Mart, Sears, Roebuck & Co., and Safeway. It was settled in 2003, where they paid approximately $3.05 billion, Visa having paid the larger share. Over 4 million members were represented. This was the largest antitrust award in history at the time.

From 1960 to 1966, there were only 10 new credit cards introduced in the U.S., but from 1966 to 1968, approximately 440 credit cards were introduced by banks large and small throughout the country. These newcomers promptly banded together into regional bankcard associations.

61% of credit cards are not paid in full, as of summer 2023, according to Primerica. In 2018, credit cards swiped nearly 45 billion times. Americans owe around $1.1 trillion in credit card debt, about $5,700 each.

Nov. 2023: according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit, credit card debt in America has increased by $45 billion from Q1 of 2023, which amounts to an average balance of $5,733 per cardholder. That is the average for all ages, but by age: $2,900 for 18-29 year olds, $5,800 for 30s, $7,600 for 40s, $7,200 for age 50-64, and $4,700 for 65 and above.

Oct. 2024: WalletHub released a report examining cities with the least and most sustainable credit card debts by examining the median credit card balances of people in 182 cities in the U.S., based on Transunion Data. According to WalletHub, the average U.S. household owes more than $10,700 in credit card debt, up 3% from 2023. That became $10,800 for June 2025.

In 2002, according to cardweb.com, American households with at least 1 credit card owed an average balance of $8,940 at the end of 2002. About 39% pay off their entire outstanding balance each month, with over 20% do not pay more than the required monthly minimum payment.

The high credit card debt from 2002, that decreased in 2018, is a factor leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, followed by a period of deleveraging and changes in consumer behavior in the subsequent years.

As most credit cards have a variable rate, there's a direct connection to the Fed's benchmark. In the wake of the recent rate hike cycle, the average credit card rate rose from 16.34% in March 2022 to almost 21% in May 2024, which is near an all-time high according to Bankrate.

A 2017 CFPB report documented that 9% of account holders pay almost 80% of overdraft fees, and that they have a median end-of-day balance of less than $350. In 2021, Black and Latino households, respectively, are 1.9x and 1.4x more likely to overdraft than White households, according to FinHealthNetwork. In Jan. 2022, the CFPB launched an initiative to examine junk fees across the financial marketplace, which could save Americans $19.5 billion every year. In 2022, 17% of households with checking accounts had an overdraft or non-sufficient fund fee, unchanged from 2021. In 2022, banks and credit unions collected an estimated $9.9 billion in total overdraft/NSF fee revenue, a 6% decline from the $10.6 billion collected in 2021. As of Dec. 2023, 34% of households that made $65,000/year had an overdraft or non-sufficient funds fee, compared to 10% of households that made > $175,000/year.

In 2022 alone, credit card companies charged $14.5 billion in late fees, which is a 28% increase over 2021. A 2023 Consumer Report national survey estimated that 1 in 5 Americans (approximately 52 million) paid a credit card late fee within the past year.

About 25% of consumer accounts had a non-sufficient funds transactions during a 12-month period, as of Dec. 2006. The average overdraft fee that banks charged increased about 11% (after an inflation adjustment) from 2000 to 2007.

The chair of the Federal Reserve at the time, Arthur Burns, hiked interest rates dramatically between 1972 and 1974. Then, as the economy contracted, he changed course and started cutting rates. Inflation later roared back, forcing the hand of Paul Volcker, who took over at the Fed in 1979. Volcker brought double-digit inflation to heel, but only by raising borrowing costs high enough to trigger back-to-back recessions in the early 1980s that at 1 point pushed unemployment above 10%.

The 2008 financial crisis generated a gigantic shift of assets to the biggest Wall Street banks, with the result that JPMorgan and the other giants became far bigger. In the early 1990s, the 5 largest banks had accounted for only 12% of U.S. bank deposits. After the crisis, they accounted for nearly half.

How does the U.S. federal reserve increasing/decreasing the federal fund rate increase/decrease interest rates for banks and home/car loans?

The interbank rate is the rate at which banks borrow money from each other. All banks borrow, even the largest 1.

Here is an example: Bozo Bank and Clown Financial Services. Almost all interbank lending is to cover short-term (e.g., overnight) shortfalls in required minimum capital balances / ratios. So at 9 a.m., Bozo Bank is short $30 million, and borrows from Clown Financing Co. At noon, Bozo gets a large cash injection (e.g., sells off a mortgage portfolio), and pays back the Clowns. But, Clown ran into a bit of “market misadventure” and needs more, so having established some good will with the Bozos, it borrows $20 million overnight. Mix in another bank, rinse and repeat.

After the stock market crash of 1929, the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 prevented commercial banks from merging with investment banks, or with insurance companies. So a bank could not be a commercial bank, and an investment bank, at the same time. After the 1973 oil crisis, Saudia Arabia ceased business with Jewish-banks while still having a relation with JP Morgan (then called Morgan Guaranty Bank), and later Citibank. Investment banks acquired or merged with other investment banks while commercial banks acquired or merged with other commercial banks. The 1980s was a time of same-bank mergers. The banking industry has wanted to allow investment banks and commercial banks, to merge, since the 1980s. President Clinton repealed part of Glass-Steagall Act, in Nov. 1999, finally allowing investment banks and commercial banks to merge. (When Clintons signed the law, 98% of Republicans in both the Senate and House approved, while 84% of Democrats in the Senate and 75% of Democrats in the House, approved.). So while JP Morgan was switched to a commercial bank in the 1930s, it quickly moved to include investment banking in the 1990s, as banks were getting permission to avoid the Glass-Steagall Act. So JP Morgan and Chase Manhattan merged in Dec. 2000, and created the U.S.'s largest bank. Chase Manhattan has agreed to acquire JP Morgan for about $36 billion in stock. The boards of both companies approved the deal. Chase Manhattan Bank itself was a merge of 2 banks in 1955: Chase National Bank and The Manhattan Company, where in 1961 it adopted the octagon symbol. Chase Manhattan later merged with Chemical Bank of New York, in Aug. 1996. JP Morgan then bought Bank One for around $58 billion in stock in 2004. They did that because they wanted Jamie Dimon, who saved Bank One in 2 years from failing. Big banks want to be big, because they know they will be bailed by the U.S. government in an economic crisis. As Dimon worked for Chase in 2004, he found some alarming information: all of Wall Street was going crazy with subprime mortgage loans. Goldman-Sachs was making hundreds of millions in a year from issuing mortgage securities, while Morgan Stanley was also making a comeback through subprime loans. But Dimon believed the mortgage assets embed unforeseen risks, and was willing to go the opposite direction, to protect the banks future. In a few years, Dimon was proven to be right.

There were around 320,000 Chase employees as of Jan. 2025, which is about double from 2005, and increased assets by $3 trillion.

For Bank of America, according to a verbal interview with the Bank of America CEO in Jan. 2025, Bank of America had around 100,000 employees as of 2004, Fleet Boston 50 to 60 thousand (then they merged), Merrill Lynch had 60,000, and LaSalle 20,000 employees.

The previous BoA CEO Ken Lewis had suffered enormous losses when he purchased Countrywide, leading to losses of $30 billion, with the stock price fallen nearly 10%. Warren Buffet gave BoA $5 billion in 2011. Under the next CEO Moynihan, BoA has earned over $15 billion/year for 10 years (2014 to 2024) and increasing its assets from $2.3 to $3.3 trillion.

ETF advice:
VTI and SCHB are both total U.S. stock funds, so redundant to have both.
VYM and SCHD are both dividend funds (U.S. large cap value) so redundant to have both.
Additionally, VYM and SCHD are redundant if you already hold VTI. Unless you want a tilt towards large cap value, in which case you should confirm you understand why you want that tilt.
And VOO (large cap blend) would be similarly redundant if you already hold VTI, unless you want a tilt towards large cap. Everything in VOO (Vanguard S&P 500, about 99.4%) is already in VTI, although making up about 14% of VTI.

SCHD is 100 companies held in VTI. VYM is large cap value like SCHD.
MGV, on the other hand, focuses specifically on large-cap value stocks, seeking to provide exposure to undervalued companies within the largest U.S. companies.
QQQ, tracks the performance of the Nasdaq-100 Index, which consists of 100 of the largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

The simplicity of VTI is you own everything. You don't have to pretend you can beat the market and guess what will be the hottest sector or market cap over the next decade.

And if it's a taxable account, you may not want high dividend funds because it'll generate taxable events. Broad market funds like VOO/VTI are more tax-efficient.

For some context, a portfolio of 60% stocks and 40% bonds is generally regarded as the classic retiree portfolio. Between 1926 and 2021, a 60/40 asset allocation posted an average annual return of 9.9%, according to Vanguard. While that doesn’t mean you can expect a 10% return every year, it does show you how investing, even conservatively, can help you over a longer timeline.

Between VUG and VOO, you get more diversification with VOO as it encompass both growth value large cap stocks while VUG only includes growth large cap stocks. This trend can be seen by VOO dividend yield % being more than double of that of VUG, as of early 2024.

VOO is Vanguard's ETF that tracks S&P 500, while VUG is Vanguard's large cap growth ETF for 200 companies. VUG is more comparable to QQQ.

Growth vs. value: "Growth" does not mean what most people think it means. It does not mean that the stocks/funds will grow your money more. It means the underlying companies are focused on growing themselves and are as such traded at a valuation with future anticipated growth in mind. In many cases, this growth can come at the cost of profitability for the promise of future returns. Over recent history, growth stocks have outperformed value, in part due to valuation expansion, which is why you see VUG outperforming VOO, which is a balance of growth + value. However, this is not always the case. Historically, value has outperformed growth and there will likely be a reversion to the mean.

A quote from Larry Swedroe, head of financial and economic research for Buckingham Wealth Partners:

The historical evidence demonstrates that an investment strategy that bets on growth is a strategy likely to disappoint because growth is neither persistent nor predictable and because value stocks should have an embedded risk premium (noting that risks, of course, can and do show up).

Value stocks typically outperform growth during periods of inflation, higher interest rates, and recession recovery, so that sort of describes the last 3 years (2021-2023), yet growth has beaten value despite the conditions.

For a large-cap growth equivalent to VOO, consider VUG, IVW, or SCHG.
For a growth-oriented equivalent to SCHD, consider QQQ, IWF, or XLK.

In 1976, Vanguard founder John Bogle launched the Vanguard First Index Investment Trust: the 1st U.S. index fund that everyday investors could access, which is now the Vanguard 500 Index Fund Admiral Shares (VFIAX). Ever since, Vanguard has been 1 of the leading names in not just low-cost index investing, but low-cost funds in general.

According to Aite-Novarica, total lost to credit card fraud in 2020 was estimated to be $11 billion.

In 2022, reported consumer losses to fraud totaled $8.8 billion, a 30% increase from 2021, according to the Federal Trade Commission. The biggest losses were to investment scams, including cryptocurrency schemes, which cost people more than $3.8 billion, double the amount in 2021. When it comes to romance scams, the FTC reported that people lost $1.3 billion in 2022 (70,000 Americans), and 1 in 5 fell for an import scam, totalling $2.6 billion. Scammers usually contact people through social media and then move the conversation to other messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Google Chat.

According to the FBI (from Good Morning America), total money lost to gift card scams, from Jan. 2023 to Sept. 2023, was 31,169 reports of gift card fraud totalling $160.9 million.

-Here is a documentary (CBS Mornings) of how a woman was scammed $160,000 from her Chase account. Chase argued it was her fault for voluntarily giving her account numbers to scammers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt6UDAYrf9I
-Here is another documentary where a young businesswoman was able to scam JP Morgan Chase for $175 million: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfdj3AfDD74

-Scam of $137,130 where the scammer already knew their bank account number and how much was in it, but only needed a verification code from them. The scammer was successfully able to impersonate Chase's fraud phone number. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5Xi7UFYnas
-Solana Beach couple sent a wire transfer of $800,000 to who they thought was their home down payment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZatBMO7TMg
As of Feb. 2020, the FBI has said Americans have lost $12 billion to real estate scams since 2013.
-$690,500 scam for a Carlsbad, CA couple Amazon scam. They agreed to let the scammers control of their computer. Then they tried to blame Chase for it, where Chase said it was not Chase's fault. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltI7DXrNQCA

In 2023, Americans lost $10 billion to scams, according to the FTC. 1 in 4 people reported losing money to a scam, with a median loss of $500 per person, the FTC said, at about 2.6 million reports, which was about the same as 2022. Imposter scams remained the top fraud category in 2023, with reported losses of $2.7 billion. People reported median losses of $7,700, which was up from $5,000 in 2022. The U.S. states with the highest per capita rates of reported fraud in 2023 were Georgia, Florida, Nevada, Delaware, and Maryland. For reported identity theft, the top states in 2023 were Georgia, Florida, Nevada, Connecticut, and Delaware. Scams starting on social media accounted for the highest total losses at $1.4 billion in 2023, an increase of $250 million from 2022. However, scams that started with a phone call caused the highest per-person loss, with a $1,480 average loss.

According to the FBI's latest Internet Crime Report, tech support scams in 2023 caused losses exceeding $924 million.

The National Retail Federation estimates that retail theft cost businesses nationwide more than $112.1 billion in 2022, up from $93.9 billion in 2021 and $94.5 billion in 2020. For 2022, the figures were 36% for external theft (shoplifting, robbery, credit card fraud, organized retail theft) and 29% due to internal (employee theft), and 27% due to process, control failures, and errors. The top 5 cities/metropolitan areas affected by ORC in 2022 were Los Angeles, San Francisco/Oakland, Houston, New York and Seattle. In New York City, shoplifting reports jumped 64% from 2019 to 2023, based on data from the Council on Criminal Justice.

In 2023, Target reported nearly $1.2 billion in retail theft-related losses (including inventory errors), and $700 million for 2022, according to Business Insider. For Walmart, $5.6 billion losses in 2020, $5.7 billion in 2021, $6.1 billion in 2022, and $6.5 billion in 2023, according to Yahoo! Finance.

Theft from cargos has more than doubled in a year, estimating nearly $130 million worth of goods vanished in 2023. Cargo theft is defined as goods stolen during transportation (usually from freight trucks).

LinkedIn told CNBC that increased fraud in 2023 caused it to remove 32 million bogus, fake and fraudulent accounts.

According to a Feb. 2025 report, roughly 79 million households pay income tax. About 40% of Americans don't pay income taxes.

As of Feb. 2024, the best selling console of all time is the Playstation 2, released in 2000, at 155 million, almost triple that of Playstation 5 at 55 million. It came with a DVD player. The Playstation 3 ended up being very expensive upon release in Nov. 2006, that Sony had to cut prices several times. Playstation 4 was much more successful, released in Nov. 2013, it hit 1 million sales in 24 hours. The 2nd best console of all time, is the Nintendo Switch. However, Sony still had to lay off 900 employees in the Playstation division, which is 8% of its global workforce, in Feb. 2024.

In 1987, the NES made up 65% of hardware sales, then Atari at 24%, then Sega at 8%. At that time, the NES started was selling at $140. As of Dec. 2019, the best selling Nintendo consoles were the DS, at 154.02 million, then the Game Boy at 118.69 million, Game Boy Advance at 81.51 million, NES at 61.91 million, SNES at 49.10 million, Nintendo 64 at 32.93 million, then the Game Cube at 21.74 million. As of March 2019, Wii at 101.63 million and Wii U at 13.56 million. The Nintendo Switch sold 2.74 million units in just the 1st month. As of Dec. 2019, Nintendo has about $8.07 billion in cash and deposits alone.

When oil prices hit a peak in 2022, there were some oil executives who colluded with others to keep gas prices high. The FTC did an investigation and went through executive's e-mails and text messages and discovered some new evidence.

Gas prices was $3.36 gallon back in 2014, went down when the covid hit, then went up in 2021, and up some more when Russia invaded Ukraine. Then, there were some oil executives who colluded with others to keep prices high. Fracking started in the U.S. in the mid-2000s, and by the late 2010s, Americans produced more oil than the OPEC (Iran, Iraq, and Saudia Arabia). Since the 1970s, OPEC were the real cartel, which allowed them to set oil prices. That changed in the 2010s. OPEC started getting frustrated with this in 2014, which started a rivalry, as prices of gas was going down. A price war started from 2014-2016, and so in 2017, there were a series of dinners at an oil conference called CERAweek, where OPEC officials and U.S. fracking CEOs sat down and collaborated for the 1st time. So, they colluded, and the price of oil started to go up, until the covid hit. In 2023, the FTC opened an investigation into the largest oil company in the Permian Basin (Texas), Pioneer Natural Resources, which was trying to merge with ExxonMobil. When the FTC digged into the merger, it recovered some shocking e-mails behind oil prices. CEO Scott D. Sheffield was trying to keep oil prices high. The FTC's subpoena revealed Sheffield was in touch with OPEC's top oil heads from around the world. He had tried to get the rest to "cut back" on oil production, in order to keep oil prices high.

During the FTC investigation, 38 Republican senators had wrote the FTC chairwoman a letter asking her to back off. The FTC concluded that Sheffield should not be on the ExxonMobil board of directors, and also banned ExxonMobil from appointing a Pioneer executive for 5 years. So how much money did this cost Americans? A quick estimate showed this decision resulted in $200 billion a year in higher oil prices. As of the end of May 2024, the FTC had recommended Sheffield to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution.

The most expensive paintings ever sold at public auction (as of Sept. 2021) are:

1. Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci - sold for $450.3 million in 2017
2. Les Femmes d'Alger ("Version O") by Pablo Picasso - sold for $179.4 million in 2015
3. Nu Couché by Amedeo Modigliani - sold for $170.4 million in 2018
4. No. 6 (Violet, Green and Red) by Mark Rothko - sold for $186 million in 2014
5. Pendant portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit by Rembrandt - sold for $170 million in 2015
6. The Card Players by Paul Cézanne - sold for an estimated $250 million in 2011 (exact price unknown)
7. Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?) by Paul Gauguin - sold for $210 million in 2015

It's worth noting that many high-value art sales occur privately and the exact sale prices are not always disclosed to the public, so there may be other paintings that have sold for even higher prices.

1. Jackson Pollock, "No. 5, 1948" (1948) - sold in 2006 for $140 million
2. Willem de Kooning, "Woman III" (1953) - sold in 2006 for $137.5 million
3. Gustav Klimt, "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II" (1912) - sold in 2006 for $87.9 million
4. Vincent van Gogh, "Portrait of Dr. Gachet" (1890) - sold in 1990 for $82.5 million
5. Pablo Picasso, "Les Noces de Pierrette" (1905) - sold in 1989 for $51.7 million

OnlyFans made $2.2 billion in 2022. According to Axios, more than 300 creators earned at least $1 million annually.

2024: While the average OnlyFans creator earns about $1,300 annually (according to Business Insider), Sophie Rain posted earning $43 million between Nov. 2023 and Nov. 2024.

Top OnlyFans Corinna Kopf, retires at 28 after earning $67 Million in just 3 years, from 2021 to 2024. http://newsamazingday.store/archives/3120 Money poured in quickly for Kopf after launching her account, with her revealing on Dobrik's YouTube channel years ago that she made $1 million in just 48 hours after announcing her debut on the platform. Her biggest month was June 2021, at $2,364,334.07.

The 2022 fall of world billionaires, and 1st half of 2023 rise of world billionaires.

Globally, the world's billionaires lost nearly $2 trillion, combined, in 2022, according to Forbes. The U.S. billionaires lost $660 billion collectively, the highest of any country by Forbes's count, as tech stock prices took a nosedive fueled by rising interest rates, soaring inflation, and a worsening economy.

Of America's billionaires, Tesla, SpaceX, and newly minted Twitter CEO Elon Musk saw his fortune diminish the most. Musk's net worth dipped by about $115 billion this year, according to Forbes. In October, when Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion, he sold off about $23 billion in Tesla shares to fund the acquisition. He has since acknowledged this deal was an "obvious" overpayment. More recently, he confirmed his plans to step down as CEO of the social media platform once he finds a suitable replacement. Tesla's stock price is down nearly 70% year-to-date, as of Dec. 27. Longtime Tesla investors are calling on its board of directors to get Musk to refocus on the electric vehicle company. Although Musk lost his spot as the richest person in the world this year, he's still the wealthiest person in the United States, with a net worth of nearly $139 billion as of Dec. 27, according to Forbes. And while Musk is "the biggest loser of 2022," according to that publication, he's not the only billionaire whose net worth took a hit. Here's how much 5 other U.S. billionaires lost in 2022 according to Forbes.

1. Jeff Bezos
Title: Founder and chair, Amazon
Estimated 2022 losses: -$80 billion
Net worth: $106.8 billion as of Dec. 27

2. Mark Zuckerberg
Title: Co-founder, Meta Platforms (Facebook's parent company)
Estimated 2022 losses: -$78 billion
Net worth: $42.7 billion as of Dec. 27

3. Larry Page
Title: Co-founder and board member, Google
Estimated 2022 losses: -$40 billion
Net worth: $76.8 billion as of Dec. 27

4. Phil Knight
Title: Chair, Nike
Estimated 2022 losses: -$18.3 billion
Net worth: $45.2 billion as of Dec. 27

5. Leonard Lauder
Title: Chair emeritus, The Estée Lauder Companies
Estimated 2022 losses: -$9.8 billion
Net worth: $22 billion as of Dec. 27

Some high-profile moguls completely dropped off of the billionaires list in 2022. Rapper Kanye West, who now goes by Ye, fell from the ranks after Adidas cut ties with him on Oct. 25 amid his continued anti-Semitic remarks, for example. And Sam Bankman-Fried went from Fortune magazine cover star to potential felon. The founder and former CEO of cryptocurrency trading platform FTX, who is now charged with fraud, saw his net worth plummet by billions after FTX filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11.

The 500 richest people added $852 billion to their collective fortunes in the 1st half of this year, per Bloomberg. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is the top winner as his wealth jumped by $97 billion to $233 billion. These billionaires collectively added $852 billion to their fortunes in the 1st half of the year — or about $14 million each day during the period — according to Bloomberg's calculations based on its Billionaires Index.

Meanwhile, Zuckerberg added nearly $60 billion to his net worth this year, following a nearly 80% rise in Meta's stock price amid the tech giant's "year of efficiency."

The world's top 500 billionaires lost about $1.4 trillion in 2022, but gained $1.5 trillion in 2023. Musk gained $92 billion in 2023 (total $232 billion), Mark Zuckerberg gained $84 billion. Meanwhile, although Warren Buffet gained $13 billion, he could not keep up with the tech stocks, so went from 5th place to 10th place.

According to CNBC on 3/5/2024, Jeff Bezos became the richest man in the world, at $200 billion, surpassing Elon Musk at $198 billion. Musk lost about $18 billion yesterday, or $31 billion lost year-to-date. And by moving to Miami from Seattle, Bezos saved up to 600 million in property taxes, and sold $8.5 billion of Amazon stock in February.

4/1/2024: on (last) Monday when Trump's DJT started, he hit a peak of about $6.3 billion. 1 week later, at Monday afternoon’s prices, which is when the company posted it had a net loss in 2023, the stock dropped, and that stake is now worth approximately $3.8 billion.

In Jan. 5, 2020, Elon Musk went from being worth $28.5 billion to $167 billion in Dec. 30, 2020. Tesla's stock, from 2019 to 2024, went to 1300%. At the time of these figures, Musk owns 13% of Tesla stock.

After Trump winning the Nov. 2024 election, Tesla's share price had increased to over $320 per share, rocketing Musk's net worth to over $300 billion.

Elon Musk later donated 268,000 Tesla shares to charity before the onset of 2025, as per a regulatory filing dated Dec. 31. According to the filing, Musk gave the shares to “certain charities” as part of his “year-end tax planning.” The filing did not name the charities but said they “have no current intention to sell such stock.” Following the transaction, Musk still owns 410.794 million shares of the company. Considering Tesla’s closing price of $379.28 on Thursday, the 268,000 shares Musk gave to charity are worth $101.6 million.

The idea of cutting taxes for massive corporations pre-dates Reagan. It goes back to 1974, when Dick Cheney and Donalds Rumsfeld, whom were advisors to Gerald Ford, and economist Arthur Laffer and Jude Wanniski, met at the Hotel Washington in D.C., after President Ford had just announced plans to raise taxes, a temporary 5% bump for corporations and the weathy. Well the original 3 opposed that, and Arthur Laffer had a theory, and he wrote on a cloth knapkin "If you tax a product, less results. If you subsidize a product, more results. We've been taxing work output and income and subsidizing non-work leisure and unemployment. The consequences are obvious!" Well, the 3 discarded that idea, but economic journalist Jude Wanniski, did like that idea. He took it and spent the next year writing articles on why cutting taxes on corporations and the wealthy was a good for America. When Reagan became president, he hired Laffer and economist Milton Friedman to advise his economic policy.

Decades later, Trump lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, in Dec. 2017. Data for how effective that is, are generally available by June 2024. According to 1 research, workers who made less than $150,000, did not get any increases in their wages from that tax cut. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZlxOvHwcq0

President Biden has not increased the corporate tax, but he did try to propose increasing it to 28%. The 35% has been that since 1993, where before that, it was 34% (Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993), until 1987. Before 1987 (Tax Reform Act of 1986), it was 46%.

Amazon.

Between July and Sept. 2023, Amazon amassed $158.9 billion in sales. And the tech giant's CEO, Andy Jassy, took home $29.2 million in 2023, which is 730x more than the lowest-paid Amazon worker made.

Facebook.

As of Jan. 2025, Facebook/Meta generates tens of billions of dollars in free cash flow annually from advertising to the 3.29 billion daily active users on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads. As of Oct. 2024, Facebook's median total annual compensation for individual employees (other than CEO Mark Zuckerberg) is $379,050, the company said in a regulatory filing earlier this year. Meta laid off more than 20,000 employees in 2023 over multiple rounds of cuts, in an effort to reverse a year of revenue declines and stagnating user growth, which Zuckerberg termed its "year of efficiency." From 2022 to 2023, the company laid off about 21,000 people, which is about a quarter of its workforce.

SoFi Bank.

An up and coming back is SoFi, a completely digital bank. SoFi has demonstrated consistently robust member growth, from just over 1 million members in early 2020 to over 8.1 million in 4 years (July 2024). As of March 31, 2024, the business had $21.6 billion in deposits, which was up 3x from $7.3 billion at the end of 2022.

Yahoo!

Yahoo's market cap reached $125 billion, then declined. It rejected a $44.6 billion purchase by Microsoft in 2008, a decade of decline led to its eventual sale to Verizon for $4.8 billion in June 2017. Verizon then merged the company with AOL, which was previously bought for $4.4 billion, then Verizon sold the combined companies for a loss at $5 billion, to Apollo Global Management in Sept. 2021. Apollo Global Management is a private equity firm previously headed by Leon Black until his $158 million payments to Jeffrey Epstein emerged in the media. Throughout the years, Apollo has owned and transformed companies like ADT, AMC, Chuck E. Cheese's, and Qdoba. Apollo turned to Jim Lanzone, who was previously CEO of Yahoo and briefly CEO of Tinder in 2020. In May 2024, Yahoo appoints Tapan Bhat as president and general manager of Yahoo Finance.

Google.

A mid-level Google employee made $331,894 in 2024, a 5% increase from the median salary of $315,531 in 2023, per a new filing submitted by Google's parent company, Alphabet, to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. At Meta, for example, the median pay for employees in 2023 was $379,050 a year. The filing further showed that Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai received total annual compensation of $10,725,043 in 2024, about 32x more than the median employee. Pichai received a nearly $2 million raise from the $8,802,824 he made in 2023. The bulk of Pichai's compensation came from the "All Other Compensation" category, besides his $2,015,385 base salary and $405,630 in stock awards. The remaining $8,304,028 included Pichai's personal security costs, which climbed 22% from the $6,775,631 Google paid in 2023 to $8,267,123 in 2024. The category also included his retirement plan and use of company aircraft or cars.

Other tech CEOs also have 7 or 8-figure security costs. For example, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's $27.2 million total compensation in 2024 included a $14 million pre-tax security allowance. Meanwhile, Nvidia spent nearly $2.5 million in 2024 on CEO Jensen Huang's security costs.

Target's RedCard and TD bank.

Prior to 2012, Target ran its own credit card. In 2012, Target sold its entire $5.9 billion credit card portfolio to TD Bank Group, which now manages the RedCard. Target wanted to reduce financial risk, avoid regulatory burdens, and focus on core retail operations, not banking. After the 2008 financial crisis, many retailers like Sears and JCPenney exited the credit card business for the same reasons.

Microsoft layoffs.

May 2025.

Microsoft, which employed 228,000 people in June 2024, deploys periodic layoffs, often to reorient its headcount toward priority areas. About 2,000 workers will be impacted at the headquarters in Redmond, Washington, according to a state filing. The terminations are expected to commence on July 13. The company has been under pressure in recent years to keep a lid on costs amid massive spending on the data centers that power artificial intelligence services and the Azure cloud-computing unit. Microsoft has said it’s on track to spend about $80 billion this fiscal year on the server farms. Last year, CEO Satya Nadella said AI was helping the company save on labor costs. The theme came up again a week ago during a JP Morgan conference, when Microsoft finance executive Bill Duff said the company is “saving hundreds of millions of dollars a year” by using AI for customer support and reducing the need for human interaction.

The company already laid off 10,000 people in Jan. 2023, including personnel at the HoloLens augmented reality headset unit and other hardware projects.

7/2/2025 The company declined to say how many people would be laid off but said that it will comprise less than 4% of the workforce it had a year ago. Microsoft employed 228,000 full-time workers as of June 2024, the last time it reported its annual headcount. 4% of that workforce would be about 9,000 people. Until now, the biggest was in May, when Microsoft began laying off about 6,000 workers, nearly 3% of its global workforce and its largest job cuts in more than 2 years as the company spent heavily on AI. Microsoft also cut another 300 workers based out of its Redmond, Washington headquarters in June, on top of nearly 2,000 who lost their jobs in the Puget Sound region in May, according to notices it sent to Washington state employment officials.

The layoffs announced in May were heavily focused on people in software engineering and product management roles, according to lists the company sent to employment agencies in Washington and California, where the cuts also hit Microsoft offices in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Summary: 10,000 in Jan. 2023, 6,000 in May 2025 (with 2,000 from headquarters), 300 in June 2025, and <9,000 for July 2025.

May 2025 JP Morgan Chase layoff.

Marianne Lake, JPMorgan Chase CEO of consumer and community banking, said during a presentation that about 10% of employees in the company’s operations division, which is focused on tackling fraud, statement and payment processing, and account services, will be laid off. She also highlighted that AI will allow the department to operate with fewer employees and “deliver more.” The bank had 317,233 employees at the end of 2024. The last time JPMorgan Chase reportedly laid off a significant amount of employees was in Feb., when it let go a little less than 1,000 workers.

June 2025 Proctor & Gamble layoffs.

Announced as part of a presentation at the 2025 Deutsche Bank Global Consumer Conference, Procter & Gamble, whose headquarters are in Cincinnati, has announced as part of a growth and productivity strategy, that "up to" 7,000 non-manufacturing roles will be cut over the next 2 years. P&G says this will account for approximately 15% of the company's current non-manufacturing workforce.

Pfizer layoffs.

Announced in Jan. 2007, Pfizer cut 10,000 jobs worldwide (about 10% of staff), along with plans to reduce manufacturing sites from 93 to 48 by end of 2008. As Dow Jones points out, Pfizer has axed 50,000 jobs from 2005 to 2012, during a period when it actually bought and absorbed its fellow Big Pharma company, Wyeth. After acquiring Wyeth in 2009, Pfizer aimed to eliminate 30,900 jobs by 2012. By Q3 2009, 26,300 had been cut, part of $6 billion in savings.

Cumulatively, 1,300 layoffs were reported across 2023–24, including vaccine R&D, and manufacturing sites in the U.S. and Ireland.

Merck layoffs.

In Oct. 2013, Merck announced it would cut 8,500 jobs in an attempt to cut $2.5 billion from its costs by 2015. Combined with 7,500 job cuts announced in 2011 and 2012, the layoffs amounted to 20% of its workforce. Ultimately between 2010 and 2015, the company cut around 36,450 jobs.

July 2025 Indeed and Glassdoor layoffs (Recruit Holdings).

About 1,300 people will lose their jobs in layoffs at Indeed and Glassdoor, by Recruit Holdings's elimination. The Japan-based parent company announced the layoffs at the 2 websites Thursday, saying the move will trim the workforce of its HR technology segment by roughly 6%. The layoffs target employees on the "R&D, GRO, and People & Sustainability teams" in the U.S. "but span all functions and several countries," according to Idekoba’s email. Indeed and Glassdoor have belonged to Recruit Holdings since 2012 and 2018.

Trump's 2025 tariffs: what % of products come from China? (May 2025).

-Target has reduced the number of its store-label products sourced from China to 30% in May 2025, from 60% in 2017. The company says is on its way to reducing that to 25% by the end of 2026. Target is shifting sourcing to Guatemala and Honduras and is looking to sourcing in the U.S.
-Walmart was able to dodge some of the tariff damage other retailers are suffering because groceries account for about 60% of its U.S. business. Target is more reliant on discretionary items like clothing and accessories, with less than a quarter of its sales coming from groceries.
-Macy's: at end of May 2025, the Associated Press reported that Macy's had roughly 20% of its products originate from China at the end of its last fiscal year, down from 32% in 2024. National brands, which represent the majority of its sales, sourced approximately 18% from China, while private brands sourced 27% from China.

In 2024, the U.S. imported about 96%, or $452 million worth, of fireworks from China.

In a June 24, 2025 video on the economy, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said BoA has 18,000 coders, that use AI techniques.

Some of the highest entry threshholds are Northern Trust ($75 million, with exceptions), Goldman-Sachs Private Wealth Management ($10 million), JP Morgan Private Bank ($10 million, from $5 million changed in 2017), Bank of America Private Bank ($3 million), and Wells Fargo Private Bank ($1 million, but by Oct. 2022, documents leaked that Wells Fargo is trying to raise it to $5 million, which is expected to affect over 45,000 customers).

Among the lowest, is Chase Private Client, which was $250,000, being lowered to $150,000 in 2022.

Chase launched the private client program in 2007 for customers with more than $500,000* in assets but who don’t qualify for its Private Client Direct minimum of $5 million and its JP Morgan Private Bank minimum of about $10 million (varies). In 2010, there were just 16 CPC locations. By Oct. 2020, Chase Private Client has expanded its private client consumer banking services into nearly all of its 4,900 branches.

Then, other banks followed through. In 2009, Bank of America's launched their Preferred Rewards program, which includes the Gold (>$20,000), Platinum (>$50,000), and Platinum Honors levels (>$1,000,000), and then Diamond tier in 2017 (>$1 million).

Prior to 2007, Chase employees spent as much 1st-in 1st-out with their richest customers, to poorest customers. As of March 2012, at Chase, over 30% of households have more than $100,000 in deposits and investments and make up around 55% of revenue, according to their presentation. In early 2011, big banks such as Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo, had started putting in fees to increase their checking accounts minimum requirement, from $300, to $1500, thereby causing lots of poor people to move to other banks. This was due to the Durbin Amendment of 2010, which reduced the fees large banks (>$10 billion) could charge for debit card transactions, so banks tried to make up for the lost revenue.

In March 2016, Chase announced that the minimum asset level to remain a private banking customer would double from $5M to $10M. When that takes effect early next year (2017), about 10% of the bank’s customers could be shuffled off to a less deluxe service, Private Client Direct. While a private banker might work with only 20 or so people, those working with “single digit millionaires” might have 100 clients.

* Note: AdvisorHub mistakenly says CPC started in 2007 requiring >$250,000 in a 2020 article, whereas Reuters in a 2011 article, and WealthBriefing in a 2012 article, said >$500,000. However, it was $250,000 as of March 2014.

Also note: as of March 2015, JPMorgan Private Bank is broken into 3 units: the Emerging High Net Worth ($1M to $10M), High Net Worth ($10M to $25M) and Ultra High Net Worth ($25M to $100+M) though there are grey areas of overlap.
JPMorgan Securities was formerly known as Bear Stearns Private Client before 1/1/2010.

Financial advisors, Oct. 2020: Morgan Stanley had 15,500, Wells Fargo 12,900, and JPMorgan 4,000.

In June 2021, JP Morgan Private Bank oversees more than $836 billion in client assets, and since they require at least $10 million, then we know they cannot have more than $83,600 clients. JP Morgan Wealth Management, is for people between $250,000 and $10 million. In Oct. 2020, in a recent interview with Business Insider, the CEO of JP Morgan Wealth Management said the firm's customer base was about 62 million households, with 40 million using its mobile app, totalling $500 billion in client assets. Note: you could be with both Chase Private Client, and JP Morgan Wealth Management, at the same time.

As of Jan. 2025, there are nearly 4 million client accounts with Merrill Edge Self-Directed and Merrill Guided Investing. Merrill Edge Self-Directed started in 2010, and gave Bank of America clients access to Merrill's personalized guidance and exclusive tools. In 2017, Bank of America clients gained access to Merrill Guided Investing, a goals-based advisory program and 1 of the 1st online platforms to provide convenient digital access to investment strategies that are developed and managed by experts, rather than algorithms. Merrill has steadily invested in the platform, including rolling out Merrill Guided Investing with Advisor in 2019, which combines the digital platform with guidance from a financial solutions advisor. Bank of America serves approximately 69 million consumer and small business clients, and offers industry-leading support to approximately 4 million small business households. Currently, 33% of all Consumer Investments accounts are held by Gen Z and Millennial clients, and these young adults represent over half (52%) of all Merrill Guided Investing accounts.

BlackRock is the world's largest asset manager, since 2014. They lend out shares from iShares ETFs. BlackRock and Vanguard lend out shares from the mutual funds and ETFs they manage to generate extra income for fund investors. BlackRock earns hundreds of millions per year from securities lending. Citadel Securities is a market maker and broker, while Citadel LLC is a hedge fund. Citadel borrows shares for short selling. Citadel often borrows the shares from brokers like Fidelity, Vanguard, BlackRock, or State Street, via prime brokerage or lending desks. They pay borrowing fees (borrow rate or rebate rate) negotiated through institutional agreements.

Lenders (e.g., Vanguard, BlackRock) own shares and lend them out. Borrowers (hedge funds, trading firms) short the shares. Brokers (like Goldman-Sachs, J.P. Morgan, and Citadel Securities) act as the intermediaries. BlackRock and Vanguard are not retail brokerages like Fidelity, Charles Schwab, or Robinhood. Instead, they are institutional investors that invest on behalf of clients (ETFs, mutual funds, pensions, etc.)

Firm	Known For
Citadel Market	making + active short-selling strategies.
Melvin Capital (shut down in 2022)	Infamous for shorting GameStop (GME).
Bridgewater Associates	Uses macro strategies, sometimes shorts markets or regions.
Renaissance Technologies	Algorithmic trading, including shorts.
Point72	Active trading, including short positions.
Two Sigma	Quant trading firm, often uses short-selling.
Millennium Management	Multi-strategy hedge fund with long/short arms.

AUM stands for Assets Under Management. It refers to the total market value of all the investments that a financial company (like a fund manager or ETF) manages on behalf of its clients. As of June 2025, ETFs like VOO has ~$687 billion in AUM, SPY ~$630 billion, and QQQ ~$347 billion. Companies like Tesla's Market Cap ~$950 billion.

From 2020 to 2023, over 50 investment firms opened up partial headquarters from NYC, to Wall Street south (from Coral Gables, to Jupiter). Some prominent examples include BlackRock (Miami 2018, West Palm Teach 2022), BlackStone (Miami 2020), and Goldman-Sachs (West Palm Beach and Miami 2022). Citadel and Citadel Securities moved from Chicago to Miami in June 2022. Also from 2016 to 2019, 70 hedge funds, private-equity firms, and wealth-management companies relocated to Palm Beach County from New York City as reported by the Business Development Board. JPMorgan serves over 6.2 million consumers and 678,000 small businesses throughout Florida (June 2024). This movement was largely due to the covid.

The fall of banking:
Nobody cares about banks except bankers. Bankers used to lend and take deposits, but now people manage their own deposits with 0% interest rates, and so the market got smarter by moving deposits away from bankers, and loans were securitized. So hedge funds have much more variety. Hedge funds came to south Florida for the taxes, among other things. Banks are still around, but they’re no longer the only gatekeepers of capital. And many consumers and businesses increasingly “don’t care” about them. Retail and institutional investors now optimize yield and risk without relying on a savings account. The Fed’s low-interest-rate era (especially post-2008 and COVID) taught the market to move capital to higher-return vehicles.

To invest directly in private markets like hedge funds, private equity, or venture capital, you typically need to be an "accredited investor" — and sometimes a "qualified purchaser" for higher-end funds.

Does Northern Trust work with hedge funds?
Northern Trust acts as a custodian or prime broker for hedge funds, and sometimes offers hedge fund allocation strategies as part of a diversified portfolio for clients.

Apple watch patent dispute, that took full effect on Dec. 26, 2023.
Some Apple watches have the blood-oxygen sensor that was patented by the healthcare company Masimo. Each week that Apple can't sell the Series 9 and Ultra 2 in the U.S., it will lose around $135 million in revenue, or 2% of its revenue, if it goes through March of 2024, as estimated by Morgan Stanley. President Biden did not veto the ban. So this ban was jurisdicted by the U.S. International Trade Commission. This only applies to the U.S. Apple already had 4 quarters of declining sales. However in contradiction, in 2013, President Obama vetoed an ITC ruling to ban older iPhones and iPads after it determined Apple was in violation of 1 of Samsung's patents.

Apple and Goldman-Sachs credit card partnership 2019-present.
In Aug. 2019, Apple and Goldman-Sachs launched a credit card partnership, that deepened in April 2023 with the launch of a high-yield savings account, that takes the cash-back from the Apple card and puts it in the savings account with a 4% return. Apple said in Aug. 2023 that customers had already deposited $10 billion in those accounts. The partnership was extended a year ago through 2029. But in Nov. 2023, Apple tried to end the partnership with Goldman-Sachs. Apple and Goldman-Sachs now have to work out the deal, which could take over a year. The Journal reported earlier that Apple may turn to AmEx as a new partner for these products.

Some new data from the Federal Reserve Bank shows that the number of people missing their car payments is on the rise. The latest data shows that about 8% of car loan borrowers will end up missing a payment during the course of the year, compared to about 7% before the pandemic.

"30 days late, 31 days can reduce your credit score by 60 points. And sometimes 75," said Donna Rasmussen, executive director for Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Northern Illinois. "And then you miss it for 60 days your score is going to go down even more. And it can take a year to get your score back in a favorable light. It can take a year or longer and then if something goes into collections."

"You can’t get a home loan or down payment assistance for a loan if your score is under 640. So, if your score goes to 635, that cuts you out of a lot of benefits that you can get for homeownership. a missed payment can stay on your credit report for as long as 7 years and that many times, when people make a car payment after missing 2 they're usually doing it at the expense of paying another bill.

Both companies are based in Chicago, where I live, and, with a credit score of 799, on Jan. 25, 2024, I contacted both CreditNinja and Avant with this response after being denied:

"So I'd like to apply for a loan, for $1000. Would like to pay it back in whole, in about 40 or 50 days. Would like to know (if approved) how much you would charge for me to pay back.

Anyways, since my application automatically denied by the website, I'm curious to know about that. My credit score (assuming it was checked) I believe is near perfect. So I'm curious to know how these credit bureaus supposedly caused you to deny me? Was my credit score that bad? Thanks."

When you apply for a loan, neither of them allowed you to type in a detailed response. But I filled out the same details for both of them, detailing that I was unemployed.

Here's what CreditNinja responded:

Thank you for contacting CreditNinja.

Unfortunately, we currently do not lend in the state from which you are applying. Therefore you will be unable to move forward with a loan application.

Okay, would California or Florida work? I have been in California this entire month.

The application was denied due to the residential address placed on the application. Since we do not lend in your state. If your residential address has changed you are eligible to reapply on 02/01/24.

Okay, can I know what my credit score returned as?

We are not privy to that information. If you have additional questions regarding your denial, please follow the instructions on the denial letter.

Here's my response with Avant:

We received your request for a statement of specific reasons why your application was denied.

We were unable to offer you a credit product for the following reason(s):

Income insufficient for available product

We wish you the best in the future.

So I replied "So how did my credit score look?"

We are not able to provide you with a copy of your credit report. However, if you were denied within the previous 60 days, you can obtain a free copy of your credit report directly from TransUnion. To obtain your free report, contact TransUnion:
By telephone:
Call toll-free (number)

By Mail:
Mail your request to: (address)

Visit (website)

Therefore, I recommend Avant over CreditNinja.

When Trump became president, he saw that the U.S. under Obama was giving free money to Pakistan, and Trump cut that off. Approximately how much where the U.S. giving Pakistan?

The U.S. was giving Pakistan approximately $1.1 billion per year in security assistance as part of its foreign aid to support counter-terrorism efforts and regional stability. However, in 2018, President Trump suspended this aid, citing Pakistan's inadequate action against terrorist groups in the region.