With the outlook bearish for surging attention spans and burgeoning critical thinking skills in the near future, a major societal correction transcends the current offering of services of tools surrounding the financial world. While the vast majority of the younger generations hold an a massive disdain towards the written word that extends past 280 characters, or does not accompany an obscene .GIF, the message is simply marooned in translation, and the adherence of the latest and greatest trendiest craze.
The first major stock brokerage firm to think out of the box was Charles Schwab, providing day traders and individuals the latitude of buying and selling on the stock market without actually interfacing directly with a broker in the mid 1990’s, is now being swept under by the hysteria or the Bitcoin frenzy, and the inception of Robinhood, a trading app geared towards Generation Z. While the financial industry scrambles to play catchup with the insatiable instant gratification appetites of the information age, the Gamestop saga has at least wet the taste buds of nepionic traders and forcing a collaboration between Wall Street and the tech industry in designing business models and investment strategies that resonate with a techlish, rather than a literate population that is conducive to big data and effulgent streaming metrics, and not 200 word insider synopsis handicapping the release of the next Amazon or Tesla.
Strategists in all compartments of the free market can learn a little bit from the social networking phenomenon which was responsible for the breathtaking and scintillating logarithmic ascension of Gamestop in turning the traditions of investing upside down, as the establishment planning on selling short. Veteran investors were thoroughly bested by a rowdy gang of keyboard and smartphone cowboys collaborating harmoniously on Reddit in reestablishing the crucial relationship for the litany of basic freedoms made possible by supply and demand. Despicably, the old guard spurned graciousness with all the subtlety and tact of the Vegas monarchy chastising a team of MIT students for cracking the gambling code through mental superiority and a sick affinity for system dynamics in consistently beating the house. At least for the short term, the disappointing response by legacy financial professionals in acknowledging that they lost fair and square to a better strategy undermines the spirit of the free market, and hopefully the overtly stubborn sentiment does not linger in giving the wrong perception to the wrong people.
Among the light speed milieu of the major stock exchanges, memories are best served as fleeting, as the comprehensive inference of masterfully evaluating current performance and the applicable sums of the past and the future, proves to be the gateway for true insight. Bursting from the shadows of economic doctrine, a posse of investors highlighted by the Bar Stool Sports owner Dan Portnoy, embarked on lucrative journey of innovative reform in attempting to modernize the criterion on how the market evaluates stocks. Backed by $5 billion, the enigmatic powerful sortie comprised of dauntless fiscal mercenaries created a novel Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) that will be tested against the rigors and turbulence of the market. Interestingly, the infrastructure behind the ETF with the apt stock ticker symbol of the VanEck Social Sentiment of BUZZ, will collect and process data from all aspects of public social media space to populate a dynamic list of 75 major companies. Powered by gold sniffing tycoon Jan van Eck, the precious metal walls of materialistic hedonism coarse through jewel encrusted channels of opulence. This means (minus the editorial musings) that for every forgettable meme or tawdry recycled thought posted on F***book or any of the other mainstream social networks that includes content specific to the companies included in the ETF will influence how BUZZ is populated at the end of each every quarter. The focus on electronic organic conversation and not the complex and involved algorithms and massive experience of industry professionals is a cutting-edge approach, and with potentially instantaneous meaningful ramifications.
The ETF security is similar in structure to a Mutual Fund, however an ETF remains active in the open market during trading while a Mutual Fund assumes all positioning after the close of the market. Younger investors may resonate more with an ETF, because smaller sums of money are encouraged to be invested do to the structure of the security. The public relations windfall already surrounding the appropriately named BUZZ has already crested in a viral tidal wave over the most visible digital channels, and already the chorus of murmurs has begun, as to what is next for the fusion of electronic crowdthusiasts and the founding stalwart of Wall Street.
BUZZ debuted on the NYSE March 3 at $23.40 and the first two days of trading saw a high volume of nearly 3 million shares bought and sold. With the affordable price point, and the ability of the individual to craft a slight portfolio, the next few weeks should at least be intriguing as the social network cadre shares their experiences through posts, and videos. As the first of its kind audio social media community Clubhouse has attracted a deluge of enthusiasm, as account holders eagerly forfeit individual rights to their spoken brand, personal testimonials will add volumes of bandwidth to an already strained server infrastructure, and the subsequent minute global warming effects of pockets of microclimates will probably not pique the interest of modern disciples championing the New Green Deal.
As the redefining of terms comes at the cost during the tedious and sorrowful destruction of the English language, and the very politically correct “Enhanced Thermodynamics” replaces the decadent energy requirements of digital scenarios that have more of an impact on the environment that fossil fuels, the financial world will have to come to its own new terms on a multitude of levels, in facing a brave new world, set ablaze by the brazen typical profile of an insatiable human being adverse to hard work and exchanging sweat, blood, and tears for the tiny stage and the 24-hour performance art reality of what unfolds on the screen of smartphone somehow translates to the nominal dogma describing life.
Pushing the edges of the envelope was a phrase conducive to the Air Force in the Chuck Yeager era of testing the physical and structural capabilities of human beings in an age dominated by analog framework, however the quick and dirty warping of the contemporary indices categorizing modern fads has a far more powerful and profound effect on a world dictated by a convenient electronic swipe, and not the comprehensive and arduous standards that dictated simplicity. Now that the voices of the masses of have been ungraciously released onto the new definition of what is public, the free market is leaning more towards a Los Vegas table game, than a familiar well-researched and pliable commodity of wealth. The whole idea of tips from strangers has been refurbished, and in the center of participation trophy culture, winning investments are no longer earned, but merely allocated to the a bastion of hysteria. This should indicate a blaring red flag to investors that merit may no longer be an advantageous trait as sentiment is introduced and applied to the pecuniary infrastructure.
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