60 million children the Treasury Department will automatically enroll in the government’s new Trump Accounts

Wow!

"The number of children that the Treasury Department will automatically enroll in the government’s new Trump Accounts as soon as this week, the agency said in rules published Tuesday. The auto-enrollment replaces the previous structure, which required parents or guardians to sign up."

"... The shift to automatic enrollment will ensure much broader access to the child investment accounts, creating them for more than 60 million additional children under age 18, according to the Treasury Department. The shift to auto enrollment means that big contributions from wealthy donors to the program—like the $6.25 billion pledge from Michael Dell—would reach more households. ..."

"... Newborn Pilot Program: Children born between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2028, are eligible for a one-time $1,000 federal seed contribution from the government. ..."

The Wall Street Journal What's news

Treasury Will Auto-Enroll 60 Million Children in Trump Accounts "New rules also ease path for wealthy donors to contribute stock while avoiding capital-gains taxes"

India’s Gen Z Is Choosing Crypto: Why Are Young Indians Investing? with Palki Sharma

Recommendable!

(234) India’s Gen Z Is Choosing Crypto: Why Are Young Indians Investing? | The Palki Sharma Show | IGR - YouTube

AI is turning everyday retail investors into mini quant funds

Good news!

"Americans are vibe-coding trading algorithms and handing over their stock portfolios to AI agents that can buy and sell assets on their own. For the retail crowd, sophisticated strategies were once accessible only to the tech-savvy few. Now, AI assistants can build an automated strategy from simple written prompts, allowing traders to crunch numbers at a superhuman scale without even watching the market. But skeptics worry the technology could expose less-experienced investors to new dangers."

The Wall Street Journal What's news

He’s Letting AI Agents Invest His Money. They Even Have Names (behind paywall) "Americans are vibe-coding trading algorithms and handing over their stock portfolios to AI agents. Welcome to the world of the robot retail investor."

Google Finance AI beta version launches in Israel

Good news! Investing like a pro!

"In recent days, a new AI tool for investors has reached Israel - the beta version of Google Finance. The new tool includes a customized display of investment portfolios and advanced market analysis. The interface has also been upgraded to allow for more convenient tracking of real-time data and comparing stock performance against key indices. Google's new model features the latest advances in the AI race, in which each company is looking for its own niche to dominate. ..."

Google Finance AI beta version launches in Israel "The new tool includes a customized display of investment portfolios and advanced market analysis."

Google Finance beta

All 15 nuclear fusion startup company that has raised over $100M, latest update

Good news! When will humans finally be able to generate power with nuclear fusion!

Hopefully, ML & AI will expedite the success in this long endeavor!

This article lists 15 companies!

Every fusion startup that has raised over $100M | TechCrunch

'Trump Accounts' are path to American dream, president says

Something like it has been proposed many times over the last 50 years or more!

India’s Art Market Is Booming While Global Art Sales Struggle with Palki Sharma

Recommendable!

AI Firm Perplexity Makes $34.5 Billion Bid For Google’s Chrome Browser

Who will by the Chrome Browser if Google is forced to divest? And what will the investor do with it?

Google tests revamped Google Finance with AI upgrades, live news feed and charting

Good news, but perhaps not for financial consultants! Can ML & AI profitably manage your portfolio? Profit margins may shrink etc. 

"Google announced on Friday that it’s giving Google Finance, its tool that provides financial information and business news, an AI update. Users will now be able to research their financial questions with AI, access advanced charting tools, and get real-time data and news.

With the update, users can now ask detailed questions about finance and get a comprehensive AI response that includes links to relevant sites. ...

As for the new charting tools, Google says these “will help you visualize financial data beyond simple asset performance. You can view technical indicators, like moving average envelopes, or adjust the display to see candlestick charts and more.” ..."

Google tests revamped Google Finance with AI upgrades, live news feed | TechCrunch

We’re testing a new, AI-powered Google Finance. (original news release)

A professor of finance testing ChatGPT's, DeepSeek's and Grok's stock-picking skills suggests stockbrokers should worry

Are you ready for AI investing to grow your personal fortune?

However, it appears this professor was only simulating and backcasting.

From the abstract:

"We document the capability of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT to predict stock price movements using news headlines, even without direct financial training. ChatGPT scores significantly predict out-of-sample daily stock returns, subsuming traditional methods, and predictability is stronger among smaller stocks and following negative news.

To explain these findings, we develop a theoretical model incorporating information capacity constraints, underreaction, limits-to-arbitrage, and LLMs. The model generates several key predictions, which we empirically test:

(i) it establishes a critical threshold in AI capabilities necessary for profitable predictions,

(ii) it demonstrates that only advanced LLMs can effectively interpret complex information, and

(iii) it predicts that widespread LLM adoption can enhance market efficiency. Our results suggest that sophisticated return forecasting is an emerging capability of AI systems and that these technologies can alter information diffusion and decision-making processes in financial markets. Finally, we introduce an interpretability framework to evaluate LLMs' reasoning, contributing to AI transparency and economic decision-making."

A professor testing ChatGPT's, DeepSeek's and Grok's stock-picking skills suggests stockbrokers should worry | Morningstar

Can ChatGPT Forecast Stock Price Movements? Return Predictability and Large Language Models (preprint, open access)

Record Number of Indian Women Investing in Stocks with Palki Sharma

Good news! Maybe I need a new investment advisor? 😊

Settling the Debate on Whether Green Investing Pays. It is slightly negative. No greenium for ESG!

Yale University admits it! Common sense and reality are hard to beat!

And this despite massive government promotion and subsidies!

What are "brown assets" anyway??? This study smells like junk/pseudo science.

"... In a new study ... replicated several papers from the green finance literature based on different measures of an asset’s “greenness,” testing their methodology with realized stock returns—that is, the actual profit or loss from stock sales—in multiple markets around the world. But they found that the results were sensitive to the specific measure of greenness and varied substantially from market to market. So the researchers instead proposed their own methodology for constructing a more comprehensive—and useful—green score, and moved from using backward-looking realized returns to forward-looking expected returns. 

The researchers found that their own green score, which they constructed by averaging key greenness measures from leading data providers, revealed a small cost of investing in climate-friendly stocks, meaning that investors is expected to get 0.50% less in returns each year when investing greenest tercile of stocks relative to the brownest. Corporate bonds and sovereign bonds displayed similar patterns as their greenness increased. ‌..."

From the abstract:

"The greenium (the expected return of green securities relative to brown) is a central impact measure for ESG investors. Replicating the literature’s wide range of equity greenium estimates based on realized returns, we find that these are not robust to changing the greenness measure or time period. Instead, we propose a robust green score combined with forward-looking expected returns, yielding a more precisely estimated annual equity greenium of -25 basis points per standard deviation increase in greenness. The greenium is more negative in greener countries and over time. Finally, we provide greeniums for corporate bonds, weighted-average costs of capital, and sovereign bonds."

Settling the Debate on Whether Green Investing Pays ‌‌ | Yale Insights "Does climate-friendly investing earn a higher return? In a new study, Yale SOM’s Theis Jensen and his co-authors find that the “greenium”—the return from green investments relative to brown ones—is slightly negative. He says that’s actually good news for the planet."

In Search of the True Greenium (open access)

Fintech OpenBB aims to be more than an 'open source Bloomberg Terminal'

Good news! Competition is good, more competition is better!

Though, the website of this company is annoying!

"Terminally open: The Bloomberg Terminal is indispensable for many, but at $25,000 per year, only rich brokerages, banks and trading firms can afford it. OpenBB is a fledgling fintech that wants to take on investment research heavyweights with its new, free version of a financial data and tooling product."

"... The all-new OpenBB Terminal — not to be confused with the previous CLI-based OpenBB Terminal that the startup sunsetted in March — is a fully-fledged web app, though it strips out many of the premium features of Terminal Pro. It’s fully customizable, can run on any operating system or platform, and provides access to an AI-enabled OpenBB copilot. Like the previous OpenBB Terminal, the all-new web app is also free to use. ...

The OpenBB Terminal serves as a single end-point for accessing financial information from some 100 data sources, spanning equity, options, forex, the macro economy and more. Users can also throw all their new data into the mix — the community has previously contributed financial datasets such as historical currency exchange rates and crypto pricing data. There are also a slew of extensions and toolkits to bring more functionality to OpenBB — such as an AI stock analysis agent. ..."

Fintech OpenBB aims to be more than an 'open source Bloomberg Terminal' | TechCrunch "Startup launches free AI-enabled financial terminal"

Screen shot of the website when you first visit it

Utah LDS Church finances: A deep dive into where it invests in innovation

Mormons invest with the help of God! 😊

"As The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints oversees its major holdings in U.S. stocks and mutual funds, filings show, it spreads billions of dollars across industries from Big Tech to real estate, from health care and banking to consumer goods. ...

A recent settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission made it clear the church must continue to be more transparent than it has in the past about certain holdings. That agreement — in which the church paid a $1 million penalty and its Salt Lake City-based investment arm Ensign Peak Advisors paid $4 million — was based on the requirement that any entity trading over $100 million on U.S. public stock exchanges must file quarterly public disclosures of the shares it controls and their value. ...

To discover these bets, The Salt Lake Tribune searched for companies that had disclosed church subsidiaries as early investors between Jan. 1, 2001, and Dec. 31, 2023. In that period, 14 companies received funding from Ensign Peak Advisors or its wholly owned subsidiary Marshfield Advisers LLC and hit milestones — such as moving to sell shares on stock markets — that revealed the investments. ..."

LDS Church finances: A deep dive into where it invests in innovation

UAE Promises $10 Billion Investments in Cash-strapped Pakistan after $25 billion from Saudi Arabia with Palki Sharma

Recommendable! Pakistan is also negotiating with the China loan shark over debt relief. Pakistan's prime minister Shehbaz Sharif wants to break the bagging bowl.

Indian startups secure over $1 bn in funding across 124 deals in April

Good news!

BYJU'S Story From Glory to Crisis: Trust Lost, Layoffs Escalate with Palki Sharma

Recommendable!