Tremendous

An angel investor's take on life and business

  • How New York Winters Helped Put Gotti in Prison

    No one could touch John Gotti. Prosecutors went after the Gambino crime family boss repeatedly, only to see him acquitted.

    Rather than give up, they went after Gotti in his inner sanctum: the Ravenite Social Club.

    As the Gambinos eventually learned, an FBI surveillance team, over Thanksgiving weekend 1989, had secreted bugs throughout the apartment two floors above the Ravenite Social Club at 247 Mulberry Street. The Gambinos had been using the apartment, which was owned by Nettie Cirelli, the widow of Gambino wiseguy Michael Cirelli (Nettie was away on vacation that Thanksgiving holiday), for years. In fact, Gambino underboss Aniello (Neil) Dellacroce also had used that apartment for secret meetings.

    Gravano also is asked whether the Gambino bosses ever considered going outside to discuss topics like murder in order to avoid possible bugs.

    “We had most of (those discussions) outdoors,” but it was “impossible to have them all outdoors.” This was because, as he said, sometimes the weather didn’t permit it and sometimes they were too tired.

    I was struck by how something as simple as a cold night foiled this wily mafia boss.

    It shows me how when we lose our discipline and lower our standards, we open ourselves up to catastrophe. This is a valuable lesson for those of us on the right side of the law, even if it comes from a notorious gangster.

    This story comes from the excellent Cosa Nostra News blog. I’ve been speaking with the author lately, and he has some outstanding content on organized crime.

    If you’re interested in the mafia, I strongly recommend checking out his site. Another great post: a fictional account of a mysterious mob hit.

    It begins with a body floating in the Hackensack River.

    Enjoy!

    More on the mafia:

    The Mafia’s Hoboken Fortress

    Paul Castellano’s Last Day

    A Notorious Mob Informant’s Hoboken Headquarters

    Photo: John Gotti

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Facebook/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Amazon Business American Express Card

    You already shop on Amazon. Why not save $100?

    If you’re approved for this card, you get a $100 Amazon gift card. You also get up to 5% back on Amazon and Whole Foods purchases, 2% on restaurants/gas stations/cell phone bills, and 1% everywhere else.

    Best of all: No fee!

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account.

    Misfits Market

    My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me. Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor. I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy! I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order. 

  • The Biggest Challenges for Startups Now

    Lately, I keep seeing startups running into the same problems.

    As an angel investor, I work hand in hand with numerous startups. I also see presentations and deal memos from hundreds more.

    Let’s dig into some of the biggest challenges they have in common:

    Recruiting

    The labor market is red hot, especially for top tech talent.

    So how can you get an edge in recruiting? One tactic I’m seeing successful startups use is hiring worldwide.

    The pandemic has most of us working remotely anyhow, so an engineer being in Canada or India is less a barrier than before.

    Startups probably don’t have the resources in house to handle the complicated legal and tax implications. But fortunately, International Professional Employer Organizations (PEOs) can help.

    These companies hire your employees, wherever they are, and handle all the regulatory issues. You just cut them a check.

    So you’ve got the tax and legal down pat…but how do you get that amazing engineer to accept your offer?

    Amazon sends a gift to prospective employees who do well in interviews. They generally choose the “book bomb,” or a bunch of books they think the prospect will like.

    I might favor some yummy food through SnackMagic or Goldbelly. 🙂

    CAC Expansion with the iOS 14 Update

    For consumer companies in particular, the iOS 14 update stung. iOS devices now prompt users to block ad tracking, and most do.

    If you were advertising on Facebook or Instagram, that tracking data helped get your ads in front of the right people.

    Let’s say you are a D2C underwear brand for women and only ship in the US. Without tracking, you could be spending your precious ad dollars advertising to men in Germany!

    The upshot: Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) expansion. The cost to get a new customer increased by 3x or more at a lot of companies I’ve seen.

    So what should you do?

    How about YouTube ads? One successful startup I saw recently doubled their YouTube ad spend with a mere 5% increase in CAC.

    Users on platforms like YouTube are often searching for something, not scrolling through a feed. There’s greater intentionality.

    If they’re searching for information on women’s underwear, you know that they could be a good prospective customer, and you can show your ad.

    This would be even more true for search engine ads.

    Another great option is influencer marketing. Platforms like GRIN or Outfit Talent make it easy to find and pay influencers whose audiences are interested in products like yours.

    Wrap-up

    Being a founder can be lonely. You always want to tell everyone “how great things are going.”

    Being an investor is different. You see countless companies struggling with the same issues.

    So know that you’re not alone and there are good solutions! The main thing is to keep trying.

    I hope this was helpful to someone. And if you have any feedback, please leave it in the comments at the bottom.

    Have a great weekend everyone!

    More on tech:

    3D Printing a Human Ear

    Why I Just Invested in Capbase, The Startup in a Box

    Inside a Startup Accelerator Demo Day

    Note: I am not an investor in any of the companies mentioned

    Photo: “defeat” by katiew is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Facebook/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Amazon Business American Express Card

    You already shop on Amazon. Why not save $100?

    If you’re approved for this card, you get a $100 Amazon gift card. You also get up to 5% back on Amazon and Whole Foods purchases, 2% on restaurants/gas stations/cell phone bills, and 1% everywhere else.

    Best of all: No fee!

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account.

    Misfits Market

    My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me. Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor. I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy! I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order. 

  • 3D Printing a Human Ear

    What would it be like to not have ears?

    Unfortunately, for patients with microtia, this is no hypothetical. Microtia, or lack of a fully developed ear, is a congenital condition affecting about 1 in every 6-8,000 people.

    Spectrum of microtia severity

    Some patients have a malformed outer ear. Others have almost no ear tissue at all.

    The only treatment is taking cartilage from the rib and fashioning a new ear. This requires multiple painful surgeries and tends to produce an unsatisfying outcome.

    But now, an incredible NYC startup called 3D Bio can use the patient’s own ear tissue to 3D print a new ear! The patient’s sample is expanded in a cell culture and printed.

    The ear can be attached in a simple outpatient procedure.

    This treatment is now in early clinical trials. If it works, it could change medicine forever.

    What if we could print new hearts, lungs, or livers? Imagine making a new, functional eye for a blind person.

    Such technology could alleviate enormous suffering and greatly expand human life expectancy. And I’m extremely excited about it.

    Best of luck to the incredible team at 3D Bio!

    More on tech:

    How Tech Could Stop Wildfires

    Why I Just Invested in Kippo, Where Gamers Find Love

    Male Contraception With an Ultrasound Device?

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Facebook/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Amazon Business American Express Card

    You already shop on Amazon. Why not save $100?

    If you’re approved for this card, you get a $100 Amazon gift card. You also get up to 5% back on Amazon and Whole Foods purchases, 2% on restaurants/gas stations/cell phone bills, and 1% everywhere else.

    Best of all: No fee!

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account.

    Misfits Market

    My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me. Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor. I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy! I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order. 

  • Citadel Holding Nearly $500 Million in AMC Options

    Hedge fund Citadel LLC is holding nearly $500 million in options on AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc., per the fund’s latest SEC filing.

    Citadel’s position consists of $191 million in puts and $272 million in call options, along with a small position in common stock. This massive position has not been reported elsewhere, to my knowledge.

    Citadel’s position indicates they may be executing a “long straddle” strategy. This strategy involves buying put and call options on the same stock.

    If the stock drops, you profit. If it jumps, you profit too.

    But there’s a catch:

    The risk of the long straddle is that the underlying asset doesn’t move at all.

    AMC’s meme stock investors are generally dedicated to holding for the long term. That provides a stable source of demand for the shares.

    If AMC shares don’t move, Citadel could suffer substantial losses.

    We’ll see who wins this test of wills.

    More on markets:

    CITADEL SUPPRESSING CRITICS WITH LEGAL ACTION

    ROBINHOOD VS. INTERACTIVE BROKERS: SMACKDOWN!

    CITADEL SUES TO CRUSH COMPETITORS

    Photo: Citadel LLC CEO Kenneth Griffin

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Facebook/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Amazon Business American Express Card

    You already shop on Amazon. Why not save $100?

    If you’re approved for this card, you get a $100 Amazon gift card. You also get up to 5% back on Amazon and Whole Foods purchases, 2% on restaurants/gas stations/cell phone bills, and 1% everywhere else.

    Best of all: No fee!

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account.

    Misfits Market

    My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me. Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor. I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy! I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order. 

  • Citadel Suppressing Critics with Legal Action

    Evidently unsatisfied with his billions, Citadel LLC CEO Ken Griffin has won an arbitration case against a parody website:

    Investment firm Citadel has won a cybersquatting dispute it brought against the owner of CitadelAir.com.

    The domain owner operates a Twitter account called Citadel Air, where he parodies the investment firm and promotes the short selling of meme stocks such as GameStop (NYSE: GME).

    The website shows a fleet of jets with the Citadel logo photoshopped onto them, parodying the fund’s vast wealth.

    This ruling flies in the face of free speech protections.

    Though Citadel claims there is a “risk of confusion,” Citadel offers no flight services. It’s a hedge fund!

    If critics can’t parody a company, a key avenue for criticism is closed. And no massive institution like Citadel should be beyond criticism.

    It strikes me how thin skinned Citadel is. Someone makes a website to goof on your multibillion dollar hedge fund and your response is legal action?

    We saw similar unhinged behavior from Citadel when it likened its critics to deniers of the moon landing.

    This is not the behavior of a well-managed company. Can you picture Procter & Gamble doing this?

    No.

    If Citadel is so sensitive, perhaps it means they’re hiding something. And secrets having a way of coming out.

    Today marks one year for the blog! We’ve gone from 0 to nearly 300,000 views and had a lot of fun along the way!

    I look forward to another great year with you guys. And if you have any ideas for content you want to see, leave a comment at the bottom.

    Thank you for a great year!

    More on markets:

    Citadel Sues to Crush Competitors

    How Solana Could Wipe Out Visa and MasterCard

    AMC and GameStop Short Sellers Down $10 Billion for 2021

    Photo: “Ken Griffin” by DanGPhotos1 is licensed under CC BY 2.0

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Facebook/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Amazon Business American Express Card

    You already shop on Amazon. Why not save $100?

    If you’re approved for this card, you get a $100 Amazon gift card. You also get up to 5% back on Amazon and Whole Foods purchases, 2% on restaurants/gas stations/cell phone bills, and 1% everywhere else.

    Best of all: No fee!

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account.

    Misfits Market

    My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me. Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor. I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy! I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order. 

  • The Tremendous Tapas of Barcelona!

    My wife and I just returned from a wonderful vacation in Barcelona! It was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.

    The warm weather, palm trees, beaches and museums make for an outstanding visit. But what stands out most is the food!

    Spain has a tradition of small dishes called tapas that let you sample many tasty morsels at a single meal. I indulged big time.

    The spot I’d recommend is Txapela. There are several around Barcelona and Madrid, all with delicious food at an excellent price.

    Above are a couple of my favorites. Camembert cheese and truffle oil atop thinly sliced apple and toothsome bread (foreground) and a piquant shrimp dish (background).

    Txapela also excels at patatas bravas, a classic Spanish potato dish with an unctuous mayonnaise sauce. The potatoes are crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, perfect.

    Since Txapela is Basque, their small dishes are technically pintxos, not tapas. But the concept of sampling many small plates is the same.

    These small plates aren’t actually all that small…I was full after just two pintxos and an order of patatas bravas. Total bill: about $12.

    Spain, I love you. 🙂

    But Spain has far more to offer than tapas. Behold the paella at El Corte Ingles, the greatest department store on the planet.

    Its depth of flavor, likely coming from shrimp stock, blew away any paella I’ve had in the US.

    Some times, you just have to go to the source.

    Spain also turns out an incredible breakfast. And at the H10 Art Gallery hotel where we stayed (highly recommended), this smorgasbord was on the house!

    My favorite was the pork pate (right). I found myself getting up over and over for “just one more piece.”

    If you haven’t been to Barcelona, I can’t recommend it highly enough! Great weather, great food, and far cheaper than the US!

    Do you have any recommended spots in Barcelona? Let me know in the comments at the bottom of the page.

    Great to be back!

    Basilica de la Sagrada Familia

    More on travel:

    I Went to Japan’s Magical Kingdom of Eyeglasses

    Where I Was Last New Year’s

    What International Travel Is Like Right Now

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Facebook/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Amazon Business American Express Card

    You already shop on Amazon. Why not save $100?

    If you’re approved for this card, you get a $100 Amazon gift card. You also get up to 5% back on Amazon and Whole Foods purchases, 2% on restaurants/gas stations/cell phone bills, and 1% everywhere else.

    Best of all: No fee!

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account.

    Misfits Market

    My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me. Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor. I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy! I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order. 

  • Citadel Sues to Crush Competitors

    “You’re the one who’s trying to regulate your way into a market victory”

    Judge Justin Walker

    Citadel Securities LLC is suing the SEC to stop curbs on high frequency trading:

    A federal judge challenged a lawyer for Citadel Securities LLC about its efforts to thwart a new kind of market order from IEX Group Inc., the stock exchange operator made famous by “Flash Boys.”

    “It’s you who’s going to a federal agency and saying stop a private entity from doing what they want to do,” U.S. Circuit Judge Justin Walker said at a hearing in Washington on Monday, after attorney Jeffrey Wall argued that the order type interferes with the natural course of the market.

    The order type, known as D-Limit, has a roughly 350-microsecond delay to blunt the advantage of high-frequency traders.

    Citadel makes massive sums from high frequency trading.

    Brad Katsuyama created the IEX to stop high frequency traders from front running mutual funds and other investors. Now, IEX is offering a new technology, the D-Limit order, to help.

    So Citadel sues the SEC to make them stop!

    Imagine if Blackberry could’ve sued the government to make it stop the iPhone. Well, Blackberry might be doing a whole lot better today.

    But the average person wouldn’t.

    In Citadel’s defense, they’re having a tough time lately. Average investors in meme stocks like AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. are suing them in Florida.

    And the SEC is considering a ban on payment for order flow, one of Citadel’s main sources of revenue.

    It’s interesting to see who’s for the D-limit order. One proponent is Vanguard Group, which holds the savings of many individual investors, including me.

    Vanguard is evidently convinced that circumventing high frequency traders will help the average investor. But for Citadel, Vanguard is competition in the market.

    And Citadel will stop at nothing to win.

    The only real question is: will we let Citadel lobby and sue its way to total control of markets?

    This is the last blog for this week. There will be no blog next week; I’ll be visiting Barcelona!

    See you on Monday, November 29th.

    Until then, enjoy a few of my favorite posts. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

    Starting a Financial Plan from 0

    Citadel Builds Huge Position in AMC Call Options

    Male Contraception With an Ultrasound Device?

    NJ’s Best Apple Cider Donut

    The Painting I Love the Most

    Photo: “Ken Griffin” by DanGPhotos1 is licensed under CC BY 2.0

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Facebook/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Amazon Business American Express Card

    You already shop on Amazon. Why not save $100?

    If you’re approved for this card, you get a $100 Amazon gift card. You also get up to 5% back on Amazon and Whole Foods purchases, 2% on restaurants/gas stations/cell phone bills, and 1% everywhere else.

    Best of all: No fee!

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account.

    Misfits Market

    My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me. Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor. I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy! I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order. 

  • AMC and GameStop Short Sellers Down $10 Billion for 2021

    Shares in AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. and GameStop Corp. have skyrocketed this year. As retail traders pile in, short sellers are nursing deep wounds.

    According to the latest data from S3 Partners, shorts have lost over $10 billion in both companies for the year. And their losses are accelerating:

    The GameStop and AMC short-sellers had lost $6.18 billion and $3.37 billion by the end of trading on October 26th and by the end of trading on November 4th, these losses had extended to $6.51 billion and $3.69 billion, respectively.

    This indicates that during the seven trading days in between, investors who had bet against both companies had lost $320 million each for $640 million in cumulative losses.

    Most short sellers are hedge funds.

    If those funds were making bets with their own money, I’d say that’s their business. But hedge funds’ assets generally come from pension plans and university and charitable endowments.

    To gamble the future of education, charity, or people’s retirement betting against highly volatile stocks is reckless. Were I an investor in such a fund, I’d be withdrawing my capital immediately.

    Meanwhile, the best performing funds are taking the opposite side of the bet.

    Renaissance Technologies LLC, one of the best performing hedge funds in history, increased its ownership of AMC by 40% in the third quarter. And that’s after tripling holdings in the second quarter.

    So who’s right? I have no idea.

    But I do know that betting people’s retirement money against turbulent stocks is completely irresponsible.

    More on markets:

    Citadel Builds Huge Position in AMC Call Options

    Starting a Financial Plan from 0

    AMC May Issue Its Own Cryptocurrency, Per CEO

    Photo: Photo: “the Great Hedge Fund Hei$t” by eyewashdesign: A. Golden is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Facebook/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Amazon Business American Express Card

    You already shop on Amazon. Why not save $100?

    If you’re approved for this card, you get a $100 Amazon gift card. You also get up to 5% back on Amazon and Whole Foods purchases, 2% on restaurants/gas stations/cell phone bills, and 1% everywhere else.

    Best of all: No fee!

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account.

    Misfits Market

    My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me. Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor. I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy! I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order. 

  • Robinhood vs. Interactive Brokers: Smackdown!

    I’m working on making my own index fund. And it’s proving surprisingly difficult.

    The Goal

    My goal is to create a portfolio of the highest yielding Dividend Aristocrats. Dividend Aristocrats are blue chip companies that have increased their dividend every year for at least 25 years.

    But even being an Aristocrat isn’t enough for your demanding author. I want only stocks with a yield above 3%, so I have some chance of keeping up with inflation.

    I call this special group the Dividend Royals.

    So which broker should I use to construct this portfolio?

    The Contestants

    In this corner: Robinhood!

    Robinhood is one of the best known brokers today. It took the financial world by storm by offering zero commission trades.

    And in this corner: Interactive Brokers!

    This stalwart of finance has existed for decades and offers sophisticated tools to active investors.

    Who will be the next champion?

    Fight!

    Robinhood is dead simple. Its intuitive mobile app makes it easy to buy and sell shares of stock, including fractional shares.

    And then there’s the feature that made it famous: no transaction fees.

    But Interactive Brokers no longer charges fees either in its Lite product. And its Pro offering can get you such great prices on shares that it should be worth the nominal fees if your trades are large.

    Robinhood’s simplicity is also its Achilles’ heel. It lacks many of the powerful research and trading tools of Interactive Brokers.

    Implementing a Dividend Royals strategy would be manual and painful.

    What’s more, if you ever decide you’re sick of Robinhood, it’s expensive to get your money out. Robinhood charges you a usurious $75 fee.

    Interactive Brokers charges nothing.

    By Unanimous Decision…

    Interactive Brokers is a much better choice. Its trading tools are powerful and its fees are even lower than famously cheap Robinhood.

    I’m working with Interactive Brokers’ support to find out how to implement the Dividend Royals strategy using their BasketTrader tool. I’ll keep you posted!

    There will be no blog on Monday. I’m background acting in an awesome forthcoming show from Netflix!

    See you Tuesday. Have an awesome weekend, everyone!

    More on markets:

    Let’s Make Our Own Index Fund!

    Plaintiffs Fight Back in Citadel Lawsuit

    Starting a Financial Plan from 0

    Photo: “Packerland Pro Wrestling – Roadhouse Rumble” by Ross LaRocco is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Facebook/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Amazon Business American Express Card

    You already shop on Amazon. Why not save $100?

    If you’re approved for this card, you get a $100 Amazon gift card. You also get up to 5% back on Amazon and Whole Foods purchases, 2% on restaurants/gas stations/cell phone bills, and 1% everywhere else.

    Best of all: No fee!

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account.

    Misfits Market

    My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me. Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor. I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy! I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order. 

  • Plaintiffs Fight Back in Citadel Lawsuit

    The small investors suing Citadel Securities LLC are fighting back against its motion to dismiss their case:

    Plaintiffs suing Citadel Securities and others over trading restrictions on “meme stocks” have filed a motion to strike the market maker’s recent court filing that leaned on the SEC’s report to dismiss the conspiracy charges.

    Describing the notice as “incomplete and misleading,” they challenged Citadel Securities about its efforts to call the court attention to conclusions set out in the SEC’s report on the retail trading mania earlier this year.

    Citadel’s reliance on the SEC report to defend itself is problematic. As I wrote here last week, the report barely even covered allegations of collusion between Citadel and Robinhood Markets, Inc. in limiting trading.

    The lengthy report devotes just a single paragraph to the allegations. It also takes Citadel LLC CEO Ken Griffin and Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev at their word.

    What’s more, the report has no force of law:

    The legal notice further explains that while the 45-page report was simply meant to describe events, the market maker had misinterpreted the regulatory body’s bulletins which, like all staff statements, have no legal force or effect.

    Despite the serious allegations against his firm, Griffin still characterizes them as “a bad comedy joke.”

    But Citadel could face billions in damages if it loses. Even for someone with Griffin’s wealth, that’s no laughing matter.

    More on markets:

    Citadel Demands Dismissal of Lawsuit, Citing SEC Report

    Starting a Financial Plan from 0

    AMC Fails to Deliver Jump 2700%

    Photo: “Ken Griffin” by DanGPhotos1 is licensed under CC BY 2.0

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