New York Times: European Central Bank Is Experimenting With a New Tool: A.I.. “The European Central Bank said on Thursday that it was exploring ways to use artificial intelligence to better understand inflation and support its oversight of big banks, but stressed that these efforts were still in the early stages.”
Wall Street Journal: The World’s Biggest Crypto Firm Is Melting Down. “After FTX crashed, the world of crypto seemed to belong to the largest exchange, Binance. Less than a year later, Binance is the one in distress. Under threat of enforcement actions by U.S. agencies, Binance’s empire is quaking. Over the past three months, more than a dozen senior executives have left, and the exchange has laid off at least 1,500 employees this year to cut costs and prepare for a decline in business.”
Ars Technica: SEC obtains Wall Street firms’ private chats in probe of WhatsApp, Signal use . “The US Securities and Exchange Commission has ‘collected thousands of staff messages from more than a dozen major investment companies’ as it expands a probe into how employees and executives at Wall Street firms use private messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and Signal, Reuters reported today, citing ‘four people with direct knowledge of the matter.'”
Lifehacker: You Can Now Get Your Free Credit Report Every Week, Forever. “Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, each credit bureau offered one free credit report per year, meaning consumers generally could obtain three reports annually before having to pay as much as $14 per request. Those same reports were made available weekly at no additional charge in early 2020, a program that was extended several times, ultimately through December 2023. Now, free access to weekly credit reports has been made permanent so it’s easier to monitor your report regularly.”
Financial Advisor: New Website Offers Help In Finding Donor-Advised Funds. “Selecting a donor advised fund from the about 1,000 that are available can be a daunting task for advisors and potential philanthropists. But now there is a website that sorts the details and ranks the best donor advised funds. DonorAdvisedFunds.com ranks funds by criteria such as ease of use, investment options and minimum account size, said Brad Saft, founder and CEO of DonorAdvisedFunds.com.”
Search Engine Roundtable: Advertiser Lost Thousands Of Dollars Lost During Google Ads Experimental Test. “A respected advertiser in the PPC community said that a Google Ads experiment that the customer did not opt in to or have the option to opt out of cost the company thousands of dollars in lost ad spend.”
International Energy Agency: A new tool to track transitions: the IEA clean energy equipment price index. “To monitor these influences on clean energy equipment prices – a critical determinant of investment in clean energy technology and infrastructure – the IEA developed the Clean Energy Equipment Price Index (CEEPI). The index tracks price movements in a global basket of solar PV modules, wind turbines and lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) and energy storage, weighted by shares of investment.”
Android Police: How to track stock prices in Google Sheets. “Google Sheets is a web-based tool, and the tricks below should work completely fine on your desktop, Mac, or a top Chromebook. While the Google Workspace Marketplace is packed with several powerful add-ons to manage your finances, nothing beats the seamless experience of a built-in tool in Google Sheets.”
Iowa State University: Crowdsourcing contests: Understanding what brings high rewards, low risk. “[Professor Hui (Sophia)] Feng studies how certain marketing strategies affect a company’s financial outcomes, including stock prices. In a newly published study, Feng and her co-authors show that crowdsourcing contests are associated with high returns — but also high risks. The team suggests ways companies can strike the right balance and put investors at ease.”
Politico: Trump social media startup wins more time to go public. “Investors on Tuesday granted a last-minute lifeline to the company looking to take former President Donald Trump’s social media venture public, handing executives another year to finish the transaction ahead of a do-or-die deadline this week.”
Bloomberg: NFTs, Once Hyped as the Next Big Thing, Now Face ‘Worst Moment’. “Nonfungible tokens, most popularly associated with the digital artwork and other collectibles recorded on crypto blockchains, have lost most of their value after once capturing the imagination of crypto enthusiasts as the next big thing. The hype and FOMO, or “fear of missing out,” around NFTs has faded since their all-time peak in January 2022, leaving beaten-down buyers and sellers struggling to find long-term value in the speculative assets. Monthly trading volume for NFTs plummeted 81% between January 2022 and July 2023, data from DappRadar shows.”
Washington Post: Trump’s Truth Social facing a key funding deadline. “With the merger stalled for months, Digital World is fast approaching a Sept. 8 deadline for the merger to close and has scheduled a shareholder meeting for Tuesday in hopes of getting enough votes to extend the deadline another year. If the vote fails, Digital World will be required by law to liquidate and return $300 million to its shareholders, leaving Trump’s company with nothing from the transaction.”
CNN: First on CNN: Biden administration launches new income-driven student debt repayment plan. “The Biden administration is launching a beta website for its new income-driven student loan repayment plan today, officials told CNN, allowing borrowers to begin submitting applications for the program as federal student loan payments are set to resume in October.”
Daily Beast: JPMorgan Saw Epstein as ‘Advisor’ to Google Founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. “According to bombshell legal filings, Epstein introduced JPMorgan honcho Jes Staley to Google co-creators Brin and Larry Page by 2003. By 2011, the sex-trafficker was considered the ‘biggest revenue producer’ for JPMorgan’s Private Bank and known as ‘the advisor to the Google founders,’ according to the document filed by the U.S. Virgin Islands government.”
Brookings Institution: The Brookings Sanctions Tracker. “The current edition of the tracker was published Wednesday, July 19, 2023. It now covers sanctions from the onset of the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014 through June 26, 2023, for selected countries. Given the rapidly evolving situation, this spreadsheet will be periodically updated.”
