Factset: How You can Invest in Hedge Funds’ Biggest Investment
Tl;dr FactSet is the most undervalued widespread SaaS/IT solution stock that exists
If any of you have relevant experience or are friends with people in Investment Banking/other high finance, you know that Factset is the lifeblood of their financial analysis toolkit if and when it’s not Bloomberg, which isn’t even publicly traded. Factset has been around since 1978 and it’s considered a staple like Bloomberg in many wealth management firms, and it offers some of the easiest to access and understandable financial data so many newer firms focused less on trading are switching to Factset because it has a lot of the same data Bloomberg offers for half the cost. When it comes to modern financial data, Factset outcompetes Reuters and arguably Bloomberg as well due to their API services which makes Factset much more preferable for quantitative divisions of banks/hedge funds as API integration with Python/R is the most important factor for vast data lakes of financial data, this suggests Factset will be much more prepared for programming making its way into traditional finance fields. According to Factset, their mission for data delivery is to: “Integrate the data you need with your applications, web portals, and statistical packages. Whether you need market, company, or alternative data, FactSet flexible data delivery services give you normalized data through APIs and a direct delivery of local copies of standard data feeds. Our unique symbology links and aggregates a variety of content sources to ensure consistency, transparency, and data integrity across your business. Build financial models and power customized applications with FactSet APIs in our developer portal”. Their technical focus for their data delivery system alone should make it stand out compared to Bloomberg, whose UI is far more outdated and complex on top of not being as technically developed as Factset’s. Factset is the key provider of buy-side portfolio analysis for IBs, Hedge funds, and Private Equity firms, and it’s making its way into non-quantitative hedge funds as well because quantitative portfolio management makes automation of risk management and the application of portfolio theory so much easier, and to top it off, Factset’s scenario analysis and simulation is unique in its class. Factset also is able to automate trades based on individual manager risk tolerance and ML optimization for Forex trading as well. Not only does Factset provide solutions for financial companies, they are branching out to all corporations now and providing quantitative analytics for them in the areas of “corporate development, M&A, strategy, treasury, financial planning and analysis, and investor relations workflows”. Factset will eventually in my opinion reach out to Insurance Risk Management a lot more in the future as that’s a huge industry which has yet to see much automation of risk management yet, and with the field wide open, Factset will be the first to take advantage without a shadow of a doubt. So let’s dig into the company’s financials now:
Their latest 8k filing reported the following:
Revenue increased 2.6%, or $9.6 million, to $374.1 million compared with $364.5 million for the same period in fiscal 2019. The increase is primarily due to higher sales of analytics, content and technology solutions (CTS) and wealth management solutions.
Annual Subscription Value (ASV) plus professional services was $1.52 billion at May 31, 2020, compared with $1.45 billion at May 31, 2019. The organic growth rate, which excludes the effects of acquisitions, dispositions, and foreign currency movements, was 5.0%. The primary contributors to this growth rate were higher sales in FactSet's wealth and research workflow solutions and a price increase in the Company's international region
Adjusted operating margin improved to 35.5% compared with 34.0% in the prior year period primarily as a result of reduced employee-related operating expenses due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Diluted earnings per share (EPS) increased 11.0% to $2.63 compared with $2.37 for the same period in fiscal 2019.
Adjusted diluted EPS rose 9.2% to $2.86 compared with $2.62 in the prior year period primarily driven by an improvement in operating results.
The Company’s effective tax rate for the third quarter decreased to 15.0% compared with 18.6% a year ago, primarily due to an income tax expense in the prior year related to finalizing the Company's tax returns with no similar event for the three months ended May 31, 2020.
FactSet increased its quarterly dividend by $0.05 per share or 7% to $0.77 marking the fifteenth consecutive year the Company has increased dividends, highlighting its continued commitment to returning value to shareholders.
As you can see, there’s not much of a negative sign in sight here.
It makes sense considering how FactSet’s FCF has never slowed down:
https://preview.redd.it/frmtdk8e9hk51.png?width=276&format=png&auto=webp&s=1c0ff12539e0b2f9dbfda13d0565c5ce2b6f8f1a
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https://preview.redd.it/6axdb6lh9hk51.png?width=593&format=png&auto=webp&s=9af1673272a5a2d8df28f60f4707e948a00e5ff1
FactSet’s annual subscriptions and professional services have made its way to foreign and developing markets, and many of them are opting for FactSet’s cheaper services to reduce costs and still get copious amounts of data and models to work with.
Here’s what FactSet had to say regarding its competitive position within the market of providing financial data in its last 10k: “Despite competing products and services, we enjoy high barriers to entry and believe it would be difficult for another vendor to quickly replicate the extensive databases we currently offer. Through our in-depth analytics and client service, we believe we can offer clients a more comprehensive solution with one of the broadest sets of functionalities, through a desktop or mobile user interface or through a standardized or bespoke data feed.” And FactSet is confident that their ML services cannot be replaced by anybody else in the industry either: “In addition, our applications, including our client support and service offerings, are entrenched in the workflow of many financial professionals given the downloading functions and portfolio analysis/screening capabilities offered. We are entrusted with significant amounts of our clients' own proprietary data, including portfolio holdings. As a result, our products have become central to our clients’ investment analysis and decision-making.” (https://last10k.com/sec-filings/fds#link_fullReport), if you read the full report and compare it to the most recent 8K, you’ll find that the real expenses this quarter were far lower than expected by the last 10k as there was a lower than expected tax rate and a 3% increase in expected operating margin from the expected figure as well. The company also reports a 90% customer retention rate over 15 years, so you know that they’re not lying when they say the clients need them for all sorts of financial data whether it’s for M&A or wealth management and Equity analysis:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/factset.asp
https://preview.redd.it/yo71y6qj9hk51.png?width=355&format=png&auto=webp&s=a9414bdaa03c06114ca052304a26fae2773c3e45
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FactSet also has remarkably good cash conversion considering it’s a subscription based company, a company structure which usually takes on too much leverage. Speaking of leverage, FDS had taken on a lot of leverage in 2015:
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https://preview.redd.it/oxaa1wel9hk51.png?width=443&format=png&auto=webp&s=13d60d2518980360c403364f7150392ab83d07d7
So what’s that about? Why were FactSet’s long term debts at 0 and all of a sudden why’d the spike up? Well usually for a company that’s non-cyclical and has a well-established product (like FactSet) leverage can actually be good at amplifying returns, so FDS used this to their advantage and this was able to help the share’s price during 2015. Also, as you can see debt/ebitda is beginning a rapid decline anyway. This only adds to my theory that FactSet is trying to expand into new playing fields. FactSet obviously didn’t need the leverage to cover their normal costs, because they have always had consistently growing margins and revenue so the debt financing was only for the sake of financing growth. And this debt can be considered covered and paid off, considering the net income growth of 32% between 2018 and 2019 alone and the EPS growth of 33%
https://preview.redd.it/e4trju3p9hk51.png?width=387&format=png&auto=webp&s=6f6bee15f836c47e73121054ec60459f147d353e
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EBITDA has virtually been exponential for FactSet for a while because of the bang-for-buck for their well-known product, but now as FactSet ventures into algorithmic trading and corporate development the scope for growth is broadly expanded.
https://preview.redd.it/yl7f58tr9hk51.png?width=489&format=png&auto=webp&s=68906b9ecbcf6d886393c4ff40f81bdecab9e9fd
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P/E has declined in the past 2 years, making it a great time to buy.
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https://preview.redd.it/4mqw3t4t9hk51.png?width=445&format=png&auto=webp&s=e8d719f4913883b044c4150f11b8732e14797b6d
Increasing ROE despite lowering of leverage post 2016
https://preview.redd.it/lt34avzu9hk51.png?width=441&format=png&auto=webp&s=f3742ed87cd1c2ccb7a3d3ee71ae8c7007313b2b
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Mountains of cash have been piling up in the coffers increasing chances of increased dividends for shareholders (imo dividend is too low right now, but increasing it will tempt more investors into it), and on top of that in the last 10k a large buyback expansion program was implemented for $210m worth of shares, which shows how confident they are in the company itself.
https://preview.redd.it/fliirmpx9hk51.png?width=370&format=png&auto=webp&s=1216eddeadb4f84c8f4f48692a2f962ba2f1e848
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SGA expense/Gross profit has been declining despite expansion of offices
I’m a bit concerned about the skin in the game leadership has in this company, since very few executives/board members have significant holdings in the company, but the CEO himself is a FactSet veteran, and knows his way around the company. On top of that, Bloomberg remains king for trading and the fixed income security market, and Reuters beats out FactSet here as well. If FactSet really wants to increase cash flow sources, the expansion into insurance and corp dev has to be successful.
Summary: FactSet has a lot of growth still left in its industry which is already fast-growing in and of itself, and it only has more potential at its current valuation. Earnings September 24th should be a massive beat due to investment banking demand and growth plus Hedge fund requirements for data and portfolio management hasn’t gone anywhere and has likely increased due to more market opportunities to buy-in.
Calls have shitty greeks, but if you're ballsy October 450s LOL, I'm holding shares
I’d say it’s a great long term investment, and it should at least be on your watchlist.

Factset: How You can Invest in Hedge Funds’ Biggest Investment
Tl;dr FactSet is the most undervalued widespread SaaS/IT solution stock that exists
If any of you have relevant experience or are friends with people in Investment Banking/other high finance, you know that Factset is the lifeblood of their financial analysis toolkit if and when it’s not Bloomberg, which isn’t even publicly traded. Factset has been around since 1978 and it’s considered a staple like Bloomberg in many wealth management firms, and it offers some of the easiest to access and understandable financial data so many newer firms focused less on trading are switching to Factset because it has a lot of the same data Bloomberg offers for half the cost. When it comes to modern financial data, Factset outcompetes Reuters and arguably Bloomberg as well due to their API services which makes Factset much more preferable for quantitative divisions of banks/hedge funds as API integration with Python/R is the most important factor for vast data lakes of financial data, this suggests Factset will be much more prepared for programming making its way into traditional finance fields. According to Factset, their mission for data delivery is to: “Integrate the data you need with your applications, web portals, and statistical packages. Whether you need market, company, or alternative data, FactSet flexible data delivery services give you normalized data through APIs and a direct delivery of local copies of standard data feeds. Our unique symbology links and aggregates a variety of content sources to ensure consistency, transparency, and data integrity across your business. Build financial models and power customized applications with FactSet APIs in our developer portal”. Their technical focus for their data delivery system alone should make it stand out compared to Bloomberg, whose UI is far more outdated and complex on top of not being as technically developed as Factset’s. Factset is the key provider of buy-side portfolio analysis for IBs, Hedge funds, and Private Equity firms, and it’s making its way into non-quantitative hedge funds as well because quantitative portfolio management makes automation of risk management and the application of portfolio theory so much easier, and to top it off, Factset’s scenario analysis and simulation is unique in its class. Factset also is able to automate trades based on individual manager risk tolerance and ML optimization for Forex trading as well. Not only does Factset provide solutions for financial companies, they are branching out to all corporations now and providing quantitative analytics for them in the areas of “corporate development, M&A, strategy, treasury, financial planning and analysis, and investor relations workflows”. Factset will eventually in my opinion reach out to Insurance Risk Management a lot more in the future as that’s a huge industry which has yet to see much automation of risk management yet, and with the field wide open, Factset will be the first to take advantage without a shadow of a doubt. So let’s dig into the company’s financials now:
Their latest 8k filing reported the following:
Revenue increased 2.6%, or $9.6 million, to $374.1 million compared with $364.5 million for the same period in fiscal 2019. The increase is primarily due to higher sales of analytics, content and technology solutions (CTS) and wealth management solutions.
Annual Subscription Value (ASV) plus professional services was $1.52 billion at May 31, 2020, compared with $1.45 billion at May 31, 2019. The organic growth rate, which excludes the effects of acquisitions, dispositions, and foreign currency movements, was 5.0%. The primary contributors to this growth rate were higher sales in FactSet's wealth and research workflow solutions and a price increase in the Company's international region
Adjusted operating margin improved to 35.5% compared with 34.0% in the prior year period primarily as a result of reduced employee-related operating expenses due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Diluted earnings per share (EPS) increased 11.0% to $2.63 compared with $2.37 for the same period in fiscal 2019.
Adjusted diluted EPS rose 9.2% to $2.86 compared with $2.62 in the prior year period primarily driven by an improvement in operating results.
The Company’s effective tax rate for the third quarter decreased to 15.0% compared with 18.6% a year ago, primarily due to an income tax expense in the prior year related to finalizing the Company's tax returns with no similar event for the three months ended May 31, 2020.
FactSet increased its quarterly dividend by $0.05 per share or 7% to $0.77 marking the fifteenth consecutive year the Company has increased dividends, highlighting its continued commitment to returning value to shareholders.
As you can see, there’s not much of a negative sign in sight here.
It makes sense considering how FactSet’s FCF has never slowed down
FactSet’s annual subscriptions and professional services have made its way to foreign and developing markets, and many of them are opting for FactSet’s cheaper services to reduce costs and still get copious amounts of data and models to work with.
Here’s what FactSet had to say regarding its competitive position within the market of providing financial data in its last 10k: “Despite competing products and services, we enjoy high barriers to entry and believe it would be difficult for another vendor to quickly replicate the extensive databases we currently offer. Through our in-depth analytics and client service, we believe we can offer clients a more comprehensive solution with one of the broadest sets of functionalities, through a desktop or mobile user interface or through a standardized or bespoke data feed.” And FactSet is confident that their ML services cannot be replaced by anybody else in the industry either: “In addition, our applications, including our client support and service offerings, are entrenched in the workflow of many financial professionals given the downloading functions and portfolio analysis/screening capabilities offered. We are entrusted with significant amounts of our clients' own proprietary data, including portfolio holdings. As a result, our products have become central to our clients’ investment analysis and decision-making.” (https://last10k.com/sec-filings/fds#link_fullReport), if you read the full report and compare it to the most recent 8K, you’ll find that the real expenses this quarter were far lower than expected by the last 10k as there was a lower than expected tax rate and a 3% increase in expected operating margin from the expected figure as well. The company also reports a 90% customer retention rate over 15 years, so you know that they’re not lying when they say the clients need them for all sorts of financial data whether it’s for M&A or wealth management and Equity analysis:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/factset.asp
​
FactSet also has remarkably good cash conversion considering it’s a subscription based company, a company structure which usually takes on too much leverage. Speaking of leverage, FDS had taken on a lot of leverage in 2015:
​
So what’s that about? Why were FactSet’s long term debts at 0 and all of a sudden why’d the spike up? Well usually for a company that’s non-cyclical and has a well-established product (like FactSet) leverage can actually be good at amplifying returns, so FDS used this to their advantage and this was able to help the share’s price during 2015. Also, as you can see debt/ebitda is beginning a rapid decline anyway. This only adds to my theory that FactSet is trying to expand into new playing fields. FactSet obviously didn’t need the leverage to cover their normal costs, because they have always had consistently growing margins and revenue so the debt financing was only for the sake of financing growth. And this debt can be considered covered and paid off, considering the net income growth of 32% between 2018 and 2019 alone and the EPS growth of 33%
​
EBITDA has virtually been exponential for FactSet for a while because of the bang-for-buck for their well-known product, but now as FactSet ventures into algorithmic trading and corporate development the scope for growth is broadly expanded.
​
P/E has declined in the past 2 years, making it a great time to buy.
​
Increasing ROE despite lowering of leverage post 2016
​
Mountains of cash have been piling up in the coffers increasing chances of increased dividends for shareholders (imo dividend is too low right now, but increasing it will tempt more investors into it), and on top of that in the last 10k a large buyback expansion program was implemented for $210m worth of shares, which shows how confident they are in the company itself.
​
SGA expense/Gross profit has been declining despite expansion of offices
I’m a bit concerned about the skin in the game leadership has in this company, since very few executives/board members have significant holdings in the company, but the CEO himself is a FactSet veteran, and knows his way around the company. On top of that, Bloomberg remains king for trading and the fixed income security market, and Reuters beats out FactSet here as well. If FactSet really wants to increase cash flow sources, the expansion into insurance and corp dev has to be successful.
Summary: FactSet has a lot of growth still left in its industry which is already fast-growing in and of itself, and it only has more potential at its current valuation. Earnings September 24th should be a massive beat due to investment banking demand and growth plus Hedge fund requirements for data and portfolio management hasn’t gone anywhere and has likely increased due to more market opportunities to buy-in.

This is an updated copy of the version on BadHistory. I plan to update it in accordance with the feedback I got.
I'd like to thank two people who will remain anonymous for helping me greatly with this post (you know who you are)
Three years ago a festschrift for Binay Bhushan Chaudhuri was published by Shubhra Chakrabarti, a history teacher at the University of Delhi and Utsa Patnaik, a Marxist economist who taught at JNU until 2010.
One of the essays in the festschirt by Utsa Patnaik was an attempt to quantify the "drain" undergone by India during British Rule. Her conclusion? Britain robbed India of $45 trillion (or £9.2 trillion) during their 200 or so years of rule. This figure was immensely popular, and got republished in several major news outlets (here, here, here, here (they get the number wrong) and more recently here), got a mention from the Minister of External Affairs & returns 29,100 results on Google. There's also plenty of references to it here on Reddit.
Patnaik is not the first to calculate such a figure. Angus Maddison thought it was £100 million, Simon Digby said £1 billion, Javier Estaban said £40 million see Roy (2019). The huge range of figures should set off some alarm bells.
So how did Patnaik calculate this (shockingly large) figure? Well, even though I don't have access to the festschrift, she conveniently has written an article detailing her methodology here. Let's have a look.

How exactly did the British manage to diddle us and drain our wealth’ ? was the question that Basudev Chatterjee (later editor of a volume in the Towards Freedom project) had posed to me 50 years ago when we were fellow-students abroad.

This is begging the question.

After decades of research I find that using India’s commodity export surplus as the measure and applying an interest rate of 5%, the total drain from 1765 to 1938, compounded up to 2016, comes to £9.2 trillion; since $4.86 exchanged for £1 those days, this sum equals about $45 trillion.

This is completely meaningless. To understand why it's meaningless consider India's annual coconut exports. These are almost certainly a surplus but the surplus in trade is countered by the other country buying the product (indeed, by definition, trade surpluses contribute to the GDP of a nation which hardly plays into intuitive conceptualisations of drain).
Furthermore, Dewey (2019) critiques the 5% interest rate.

She [Patnaik] consistently adopts statistical assumptions (such as compound interest at a rate of 5% per annum over centuries) that exaggerate the magnitude of the drain

Moving on:

The exact mechanism of drain, or transfers from India to Britain was quite simple.

Convenient.

Drain theory possessed the political merit of being easily grasped by a nation of peasants. [...] No other idea could arouse people than the thought that they were being taxed so that others in far off lands might live in comfort. [...] It was, therefore, inevitable that the drain theory became the main staple of nationalist political agitation during the Gandhian era.

- Chandra et al. (1989)

The key factor was Britain’s control over our taxation revenues combined with control over India’s financial gold and forex earnings from its booming commodity export surplus with the world. Simply put, Britain used locally raised rupee tax revenues to pay for its net import of goods, a highly abnormal use of budgetary funds not seen in any sovereign country.

The issue with figures like these is they all make certain methodological assumptions that are impossible to prove. From Roy in Frankema et al. (2019):

the "drain theory" of Indian poverty cannot be tested with evidence, for several reasons. First, it rests on the counterfactual that any money saved on account of factor payments abroad would translate into domestic investment, which can never be proved. Second, it rests on "the primitive notion that all payments to foreigners are "drain"", that is, on the assumption that these payments did not contribute to domestic national income to the equivalent extent (Kumar 1985, 384; see also Chaudhuri 1968). Again, this cannot be tested. [...] Fourth, while British officers serving India did receive salaries that were many times that of the average income in India, a paper using cross-country data shows that colonies with better paid officers were governed better (Jones 2013).

Indeed, drain theory rests on some very weak foundations. This, in of itself, should be enough to dismiss any of the other figures that get thrown out. Nonetheless, I felt it would be a useful exercise to continue exploring Patnaik's take on drain theory.

The East India Company from 1765 onwards allocated every year up to one-third of Indian budgetary revenues net of collection costs, to buy a large volume of goods for direct import into Britain, far in excess of that country’s own needs.

So what's going on here? Well Roy (2019) explains it better:

Colonial India ran an export surplus, which, together with foreign investment, was used to pay for services purchased from Britain. These payments included interest on public debt, salaries, and pensions paid to government offcers who had come from Britain, salaries of managers and engineers, guaranteed profts paid to railway companies, and repatriated business profts. How do we know that any of these payments involved paying too much? The answer is we do not.

So what was really happening is the government was paying its workers for services (as well as guaranteeing profits - to promote investment - something the GoI does today Dalal (2019), and promoting business in India), and those workers were remitting some of that money to Britain. This is hardly a drain (unless, of course, Indian diaspora around the world today are "draining" it). In some cases, the remittances would take the form of goods (as described) see Chaudhuri (1983):

It is obvious that these debit items were financed through the export surplus on merchandise account, and later, when railway construction started on a large scale in India, through capital import. Until 1833 the East India Company followed a cumbersome method in remitting the annual home charges. This was to purchase export commodities in India out of revenue, which were then shipped to London and the proceeds from their sale handed over to the home treasury.

While Roy's earlier point argues better paid officers governed better, it is honestly impossible to say what part of the repatriated export surplus was a drain, and what was not. However calling all of it a drain is definitely misguided.
It's worth noting that Patnaik seems to make no attempt to quantify the benefits of the Raj either, Dewey (2019)'s 2nd criticism:

she [Patnaik] consistently ignores research that would tend to cut the economic impact of the drain down to size, such as the work on the sources of investment during the industrial revolution (which shows that industrialisation was financed by the ploughed-back profits of industrialists) or the costs of empire school (which stresses the high price of imperial defence)

​

Since tropical goods were highly prized in other cold temperate countries which could never produce them, in effect these free goods represented international purchasing power for Britain which kept a part for its own use and re-exported the balance to other countries in Europe and North America against import of food grains, iron and other goods in which it was deficient.

Re-exports necessarily adds value to goods when the goods are processed and when the goods are transported. The country with the largest navy at the time would presumably be in very good stead to do the latter.

The British historians Phyllis Deane and WA Cole presented an incorrect estimate of Britain’s 18th-19th century trade volume, by leaving out re-exports completely. I found that by 1800 Britain’s total trade was 62% higher than their estimate, on applying the correct definition of trade including re-exports, that is used by the United Nations and by all other international organisations.

While interesting, and certainly expected for such an old book, re-exporting necessarily adds value to goods.

When the Crown took over from the Company, from 1861 a clever system was developed under which all of India’s financial gold and forex earnings from its fast-rising commodity export surplus with the world, was intercepted and appropriated by Britain. As before up to a third of India’s rising budgetary revenues was not spent domestically but was set aside as ‘expenditure abroad’.

So, what does this mean? Britain appropriated all of India's earnings, and then spent a third of it aboard? Not exactly. She is describing home charges see Roy (2019) again:

Some of the expenditures on defense and administration were made in sterling and went out of the country. This payment by the government was known as the Home Charges. For example, interest payment on loans raised to finance construction of railways and irrigation works, pensions paid to retired officers, and purchase of stores, were payments in sterling. [...] almost all money that the government paid abroad corresponded to the purchase of a service from abroad. [...] The balance of payments system that emerged after 1800 was based on standard business principles. India bought something and paid for it. State revenues were used to pay for wages of people hired abroad, pay for interest on loans raised abroad, and repatriation of profits on foreign investments coming into India. These were legitimate market transactions.

Indeed, if paying for what you buy is drain, then several billions of us are drained every day.

The Secretary of State for India in Council, based in London, invited foreign importers to deposit with him the payment (in gold, sterling and their own currencies) for their net imports from India, and these gold and forex payments disappeared into the yawning maw of the SoS’s account in the Bank of England.

It should be noted that India having two heads was beneficial, and encouraged investment per Roy (2019):

The fact that the India Office in London managed a part of the monetary system made India creditworthy, stabilized its currency, and encouraged foreign savers to put money into railways and private enterprise in India. Current research on the history of public debt shows that stable and large colonies found it easier to borrow abroad than independent economies because the investors trusted the guarantee of the colonist powers.

​

Against India’s net foreign earnings he issued bills, termed Council bills (CBs), to an equivalent rupee value. The rate (between gold-linked sterling and silver rupee) at which the bills were issued, was carefully adjusted to the last farthing, so that foreigners would never find it more profitable to ship financial gold as payment directly to Indians, compared to using the CB route. Foreign importers then sent the CBs by post or by telegraph to the export houses in India, that via the exchange banks were paid out of the budgeted provision of sums under ‘expenditure abroad’, and the exporters in turn paid the producers (peasants and artisans) from whom they sourced the goods.

Sunderland (2013) argues CBs had two main roles (and neither were part of a grand plot to keep gold out of India):

Council bills had two roles. They firstly promoted trade by handing the IO some control of the rate of exchange and allowing the exchange banks to remit funds to India and to hedge currency transaction risks. They also enabled the Indian government to transfer cash to England for the payment of its UK commitments.

​

The United Nations (1962) historical data for 1900 to 1960, show that for three decades up to 1928 (and very likely earlier too) India posted the second highest merchandise export surplus in the world, with USA in the first position. Not only were Indians deprived of every bit of the enormous international purchasing power they had earned over 175 years, even its rupee equivalent was not issued to them since not even the colonial government was credited with any part of India’s net gold and forex earnings against which it could issue rupees. The sleight-of-hand employed, namely ‘paying’ producers out of their own taxes, made India’s export surplus unrequited and constituted a tax-financed drain to the metropolis, as had been correctly pointed out by those highly insightful classical writers, Dadabhai Naoroji and RCDutt.

It doesn't appear that others appreciate their insight Roy (2019):

K. N. Chaudhuri rightly calls such practice ‘confused’ economics ‘coloured by political feelings’.

​

Surplus budgets to effect such heavy tax-financed transfers had a severe employment–reducing and income-deflating effect: mass consumption was squeezed in order to release export goods. Per capita annual foodgrains absorption in British India declined from 210 kg. during the period 1904-09, to 157 kg. during 1937-41, and to only 137 kg by 1946.

Dewey (1978) points out reliability issues with Indian agriculutural statistics, however this calorie decline persists to this day. Some of it is attributed to less food being consumed at home Smith (2015), a lower infectious disease burden Duh & Spears (2016) and diversified diets Vankatesh et al. (2016).

If even a part of its enormous foreign earnings had been credited to it and not entirely siphoned off, India could have imported modern technology to build up an industrial structure as Japan was doing.

This is, unfortunately, impossible to prove. Had the British not arrived in India, there is no clear indication that India would've united (this is arguably more plausible than the given counterfactual¹). Had the British not arrived in India, there is no clear indication India would not have been nuked in WW2, much like Japan. Had the British not arrived in India, there is no clear indication India would not have been invaded by lizard people, much like Japan. The list continues eternally.
Nevertheless, I will charitably examine the given counterfactual anyway. Did pre-colonial India have industrial potential? The answer is a resounding no.
From Gupta (1980):

This article starts from the premise that while economic categories - the extent of commodity production, wage labour, monetarisation of the economy, etc - should be the basis for any analysis of the production relations of pre-British India, it is the nature of class struggles arising out of particular class alignments that finally gives the decisive twist to social change. Arguing on this premise, and analysing the available evidence, this article concludes that there was little potential for industrial revolution before the British arrived in India because, whatever might have been the character of economic categories of that period, the class relations had not sufficiently matured to develop productive forces and the required class struggle for a 'revolution' to take place.

A view echoed in Raychaudhuri (1983):

Yet all of this did not amount to an economic situation comparable to that of western Europe on the eve of the industrial revolution. Her technology - in agriculture as well as manufacturers - had by and large been stagnant for centuries. [...] The weakness of the Indian economy in the mid-eighteenth century, as compared to pre-industrial Europe was not simply a matter of technology and commercial and industrial organization. No scientific or geographical revolution formed part of the eighteenth-century Indian's historical experience. [...] Spontaneous movement towards industrialisation is unlikely in such a situation.

So now we've established India did not have industrial potential, was India similar to Japan just before the Meiji era? The answer, yet again, unsurprisingly, is no. Japan's economic situation was not comparable to India's, which allowed for Japan to finance its revolution. From Yasuba (1986):

All in all, the Japanese standard of living may not have been much below the English standard of living before industrialization, and both of them may have been considerably higher than the Indian standard of living. We can no longer say that Japan started from a pathetically low economic level and achieved a rapid or even "miraculous" economic growth. Japan's per capita income was almost as high as in Western Europe before industrialization, and it was possible for Japan to produce surplus in the Meiji Period to finance private and public capital formation.

The circumstances that led to Meiji Japan were extremely unique. See Tomlinson (1985):

Most modern comparisons between India and Japan, written by either Indianists or Japanese specialists, stress instead that industrial growth in Meiji Japan was the product of unique features that were not reproducible elsewhere. [...] it is undoubtably true that Japan's progress to industrialization has been unique and unrepeatable

So there you have it. Unsubstantiated statistical assumptions, calling any number you can a drain & assuming a counterfactual for no good reason gets you this $45 trillion number. Hopefully that's enough to bury it in the ground.
^{1. Several authors have affirmed that Indian identity is a colonial artefact. For example see Rajan 1969:}

^{Perhaps the single greatest and most enduring impact of British rule over India is that it created an Indian nation, in the modern political sense. After centuries of rule by different dynasties overparts of the Indian sub-continent, and after about 100 years of British rule, Indians ceased to be merely Bengalis, Maharashtrians,or Tamils, linguistically and culturally.}

^{or see Bryant 2000:}

^{But then, it would be anachronistic to condemn eighteenth-century Indians, who served the British, as collaborators, when the notion of 'democratic' nationalism or of an Indian 'nation' did not then exist. [...] Indians who fought for them, differed from the Europeans in having a primary attachment to a non-belligerent religion, family and local chief, which was stronger than any identity they might have with a more remote prince or 'nation'.}

Bibliography

Chakrabarti, Shubra & Patnaik, Utsa (2018). Agrarian and other histories: Essays for Binay Bhushan Chaudhuri. Colombia University Press
Hickel, Jason (2018). How the British stole $45 trillion from India. The Guardian
Bhuyan, Aroonim & Sharma, Krishan (2019). The Great Loot: How the British stole $45 trillion from India. Indiapost
Monbiot, George (2020). English Landowners have stolen our rights. It is time to reclaim them. The Guardian
Tsjeng, Zing (2020). How Britain Stole $45 trillion from India with trains | Empires of Dirt. Vice
Chaudhury, Dipanjan (2019). British looted $45 trillion from India in today’s value: Jaishankar. The Economic Times
Roy, Tirthankar (2019). How British rule changed India's economy: The Paradox of the Raj. Palgrave Macmillan
Patnaik, Utsa (2018). How the British impoverished India. Hindustan Times
Tuovila, Alicia (2019). Expenditure method. Investopedia
Dewey, Clive (2019). Changing the guard: The dissolution of the nationalist–Marxist orthodoxy in the agrarian and agricultural history of India. The Indian Economic & Social History Review
Chandra, Bipan et al. (1989). India's Struggle for Independence, 1857-1947. Penguin Books
Frankema, Ewout & Booth, Anne (2019). Fiscal Capacity and the Colonial State in Asia and Africa, c. 1850-1960. Cambridge University Press
Dalal, Sucheta (2019). IL&FS Controversy: Centre is Paying Up on Sovereign Guarantees to ADB, KfW for Group's Loan. TheWire
Chaudhuri, K.N. (1983). X - Foreign Trade and Balance of Payments (1757–1947). Cambridge University Press
Sunderland, David (2013). Financing the Raj: The City of London and Colonial India, 1858-1940. Boydell Press
Dewey, Clive (1978). Patwari and Chaukidar: Subordinate officials and the reliability of India’s agricultural statistics. Athlone Press
Smith, Lisa (2015). The great Indian calorie debate: Explaining rising undernourishment during India’s rapid economic growth. Food Policy
Duh, Josephine & Spears, Dean (2016). Health and Hunger: Disease, Energy Needs, and the Indian Calorie Consumption Puzzle. The Economic Journal
Vankatesh, P. et al. (2016). Relationship between Food Production and Consumption Diversity in India – Empirical Evidences from Cross Section Analysis. Agricultural Economics Research Review
Gupta, Shaibal (1980). Potential of Industrial Revolution in Pre-British India. Economic and Political Weekly
Raychaudhuri, Tapan (1983). I - The mid-eighteenth-century background. Cambridge University Press
Yasuba, Yasukichi (1986). Standard of Living in Japan Before Industrialization: From what Level did Japan Begin? A Comment. The Journal of Economic History
Tomblinson, B.R. (1985). Writing History Sideways: Lessons for Indian Economic Historians from Meiji Japan. Cambridge University Press
Rajan, M.S. (1969). The Impact of British Rule in India. Journal of Contemporary History
Bryant, G.J. (2000). Indigenous Mercenaries in the Service of European Imperialists: The Case of the Sepoys in the Early British Indian Army, 1750-1800. War in History

This is the updated first part of the list that has recorded the notable events as the world deals with the COVID-19 pandemic. [2nd Part] ― The LINKS to events and sources are placed throughout the timeline.
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The More Data We Collect and Analyze, the Clearer the Picture Becomes.
Someone threw a stone in a pond a long way away. And we're only just feeling the ripples. — Fukuhara from Giri/Haji, Netflix series
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On Jan 30, Italian PM announced that Italy had blocked all flights to and from China. While Italy has banned people from air-travelling to China, however according to IATA data, there's no measurement implemented for air-travellers from China into Italy till the Mar 07. Especially for Chinese people who have EU passports.
On Jan 31, the US announced the category-I travel restrictions, barring all foreigners who have been in China for the past 14 days, with measures including the refusal of visas and mandatory quarantine.
• "Because the US focused on China and didn't expect the infected people's entry from Europe and the Middle East, the Maginot Line was breached from behind. And so little of credible data at the beginning made the US government to miscalculate its strategic response to the virus." — Dr. Zhang Lun, currently a visiting scholar at Harvard (economics & sociology), during the interview with ICPC on Mar 29.
Also on Jan 31, the WHO changed its tune and declared the coronavirus outbreak a Global Public Health Emergency of international concern (PHEIC).

Decisions on a PHEIC always involve politics .... West African countries discouraged a declaration in 2014 after they were hit by the largest Ebola virus outbreak on record, mainly because of concern about the economic impact.

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On Feb 02, regarding the US category-I travel restrictions, Kamala Harris, the former Democratic presidential candidate, declared on Twitter:

Since 2017, Trump’s travel bans have never been rooted in national security—they’re about discriminating against people of color. They are, without a doubt, rooted in anti-immigrant, white supremacist ideologies. This travel ban is no different.

On Feb 03, criticizing Trump for his travel restrictions continues. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying (华春莹), a Peking University professors James Liang (梁建章), New York Times, the Nation, OBSERVER, the Boston Globe, Yahoo, and Daily Kos were saying,
it's a "panicky" decision and "racist" or it's "cruel and callous," he's stoking fear for political gains, and the president is "inappropriately overreacting." And professors Liang even said the US ban "will hurt goodwill and cooperation [with China] in the future." [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
Also on Feb 03, Mr. Tedros of the WHO said there's no need for travel ban measure that "unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade" trying to halt the spread of the virus.

China's delegate took the floor ... and denounced measures by "some countries" that have denied entry to people holding passports issued in Hubei province - at the centre of the outbreak - and to deny visas and cancel flights.

Also on Feb 03, China is expected to gradually implement a larger stimulus packages (in total) than a USD $572 billion from 2008. — We'd never find out but my guess is that the fund will probably go to Shanghai clique.
On Feb 04, The FDA has given emergency authorization to a new test kit by the CDC that promises to help public health labs meet a potential surge in cases.

The speed ... pushing through a new diagnostic test shows just how seriously they’re taking the potentially pandemic threat of 2019-nCoV. It’s also a sign that the world is starting to learn how to deal with an onslaught of new pathogens.

Also on Feb 04, the Wuhan Institute of Virology and China's Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS, Chief Chen Wei belongs to) have jointly applied to patent the use of Remdesivir. Scientists from both institutes said in a paper published in Nature’s Cell Research that they found both Remdesivir and Chloroquine to be an effective way to inhibit the coronavirus.
On Feb 06, Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based research & analysis unit, noted that with State Council of PRC praising his performance of containing the pandemic situation, the council expanded Li Keqiang's political control over Politburo Standing Committee of CCP. (Li Keqiang = Communist Youth League = Shanghai clique)
Also, on Feb 06, as the US evacuation planes leave China, the wave of the US evacuees have arrived who are met by the CDC personnel at the quarantine sites for screening, and those who were suspected of infection will be placed under quarantine for 14 days.
Also, on Feb 06, a CDC-developed lab test kit to detect the new coronavirus began shipping to qualified US laboratories and international ones. — However, on Feb 12, the CDC said some of the testing kits have flaws and do not work properly. The CDC finally ended up shipping the working test kits for mass testings on Feb 27. This was three weeks later than originally planned.
On Feb 07, China National Petroleum has recently declared Force Majeure on gas imports. They are trying to create a breathing room for their foreign exchange reserves shortage. China's foreign exchange reserves fell to mere USD $3.1 trillion in Oct. 2019.
On the same day, Bloomberg reported that PetroChina has directed employees in 20 countries to buy N95 face masks and send them home in China. The goal is to get 2 million masks shipped back. You can also find YouTube videos that show Overseas Chinese are scouring the masks at the Home Depot to ship them to China (the video in Korean). Also Chris Smith is pissed.
On Feb 09, Trump renews his national emergency on its southern border, and Elizabeth Goitein from the Brennan Center for Justice, published an opinion article on New York Times titled "Trump Has Abused This Power. And He Will Again if He’s Not Stopped."
On Feb 10, Dr. Tedros said that an advance three-person team of the WHO arrived in Beijing for a joint mission to discuss with Chinese officials the agenda and questions. Then, the joint mission of about 10 international experts will soon follow, he said. — Those WHO experts ended up visiting Chinese epicentre for the first time on Feb 24.
On Feb 12, the US targets Russian oil company for helping Venezuela skirt sanctions. The US admin seemingly tried to secure leverage against Russia after noticing something suspicious was up.
On the same day, Trump told Reuters "I hope this outbreak or this event (for the US) may be over in something like April." — Dr. Zhong Nanshan (钟南山), China's top tier SARS-hero doctor, also said "the peak of the virus (for China) should come in mid to late February, followed by a plateau or decrease," adding that his forecast was based on on mathematical modelling and data from recent events and government action.
On Feb 13, Tom Frieden who is a former US CDC chief and currently the head of public health nonprofit Resolve to Save Lives, said:

As countries are trying to develop their own control strategies, they are looking for evidence of whether the situation in China is getting worse or better. [But] We still don't have very basic information. [since the WHO just entered China] We hope that information will be coming out.

On the same day, the CDC reports that the 15th case in the US was confirmed. The patient was a part of group who were under a federal quarantine order at the JBSA-Lackland base because of a recent trip to Hubei Province, China.
By Feb 13, China hasn't accepted the US CDC's offer to send top experts, and they haven't released the "disaggregated" data (specific figures broken out from the overall numbers) even though repeatedly been asked.
On Feb 14, CCP's United Front posted an article on its official website, saying (Eng. text by Google Translation):

Fast! There is no time difference to raise urgently needed materials! Some Overseas Chinese have used their professions in the field of medicine in order to purchase relevant materials Hubei province in short of supply (to send them to China). .... Some Overseas Chinese took advantage of the connection resources, opened green transportation channels through our embassies and consulates abroad, and their related enterprises, and quickly sent large quantities of medical supplies (to China), making this love relay link and cooperation seamless.

On Feb 18, Reuters reports that 3M is on the list of firms eligible for China loans to ease coronavirus crisis.

There is no indication from the list that loans offered will necessarily be sought, or that such firms are in any financial need. The Bank of Shanghai told Reuters it will lend 5.5 billion yuan ($786 million) to 57 firms on its list.

On Feb 21, Xi Jinping writes a thank-you letter to Bill Gates for his foundation’s support to China regarding COVID-19 outbreak.
On Feb 24, China was rumoured on Twitter to delay the phase one trade deal implementation indefinitely which includes the increase of China's purchasing American products & services by at least $200 billion over the next two years.
Also on Feb 24, S&P 500 Index started to drop. Opened with 3225.9 and closed 3128.2. By the Mar 23, it dropped to 2208.9.
Also on Feb 24, China's National Health Commission says the WHO experts have visited Wuhan city for the first time, the locked-down central Chinese city at the epicentre, inspecting two hospitals and a makeshift one at a sports centre.
On Feb 26, IF the picture that has been circulated on Twitter were real, then chief Chen Wei and her team have developed the first batch of COVID-19 vaccine within time frame of a month.
On the same day, the CDC's latest figures displays 59 people in the US who have tested positive for COVID-19.
Also on Feb 26, the Washington Post published an article that says:

.... the WHO said it has repeatedly asked Chinese officials for "disaggregated" data — meaning specific figures broken out from the overall numbers — that could shed light on hospital transmission and help assess the level of risk front-line workers face. "We received disaggregated information at intervals, though not details about health care workers," said Tarik Jasarevic of the WHO. — The comment, in an email on Feb 22 to the Post, was one of the first instances that the WHO had directly addressed shortcomings in China's reporting or handling of the coronavirus crisis.

On Feb 27, after missteps, the CDC says its test kit is ready and the US started to expand testing.
On Feb 28, China transferred more than 80,000 Uighurs to factories used by global brands such as Apple, Nike, & Volkswagen & among others.
Also on Feb 28, the WHO published the official report of the WHO-China joint mission on coronavirus disease 2019. (PDF)
On Feb 29, quoting Caixin media's investigation published on the same day, Lianhe Zaobao, the largest Singapore-based Chinese-language newspaper, published an article reporting the following:

Dr. Li Wenliang said in the interview with Caixin media; [in Dec 2019] another doctor (later turned out to be Dr. Ai Fen) examined and tried to treat a patient who exhibited SARS-like symptoms which akin to influenza resistant to conventional treatment methods. And "the family members who took care of her (the patient) that night also had a fever, and her other daughter also had a fever. This is obviously from person to person" Dr. Li said in the interview."

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On Mar 01, China's State Council super tighten up their already draconian internet law.
On the same day, Princelings published an propaganda called "A Battle Against Epidemic: China Combating COVID-19 in 2020" which compiles numerous state media accounts on the heroic leadership of Xi Jinping, the vital role of the Communist Party, and the superiority of the Chinese system in fighting the virus.
Starting on Mar 03, the US Fed has taken two significant measures to provide monetary stimulus. It's going to be no use as if a group of people with serious means are manipulating the markets to make sure MM will have liquidity concerns when they need it most.
On Mar 04, Xinhua News, China's official state-run press agency posted an article "Be bold: the world should thank China" which states that

If China retaliates against the US at this time, it will also announce strategic control over medical products, and ban exports of said products to the US. ... If China declares today that its drugs are for domestic use only, the US will fall into the hell of new coronavirus epidemic.

On Mar 05, Shanghai Index has recovered the coronavirus loss almost completely.
On Mar 07, Saudi's Ahmed bin Abdulaziz and Muhammad bin Nayef were arrested on the claims of plotting to overthrow King Salman. — Ahmed bin Abdulaziz is known to have very tight investment-interest relationship with Bill Gates, Bill Browder, Blackstone, & BlackRock: One common factor that connects these people is China.
On Mar 08, the Russia–Saudi oil price war has begun. The ostensible reason was simple: China, the biggest importer of oil from Saudi and Russia, was turning back tankers while claiming that the outbreak forced its economy to a standstill.
On Mar 10, the Washington Post published the article saying that the trade group for manufacturers of personal protective equipment urged in 2009 "immediate action" to restock the national stockpile including N95 masks, but it hasn't been replenished since.
On Mar 11, the gentleman at the WHO declares the coronavirus outbreak a "Global Pandemic." He called on governments to change the course of the outbreak by taking "urgent and aggressive action." This was a full twelve days after the organization published the official report regarding the situation in China.
On Mar 13, the US admin declared a National Emergency and announced the plan to release $50 billion in federal resources amid COVID-19.
Also on Mar 13, China's Ministry of Commerce states that China is now the best region for global investment hedging.
On Mar 15, Business Insider reports that Trump tried to poach German scientists working on a coronavirus vaccine and offered cash so it would be exclusive to the US. The problem is the official CureVac (the German company) twitter account, on Mar 16, 2020, tweeted the following:

To make it clear again on coronavirus: CureVac has not received from the US government or related entities an offer before, during and since the Task Force meeting in the White House on March 2. CureVac rejects all allegations from press.

On Mar 16, the fan club of European globalists has published a piece titled, "China and Coronavirus: From Home-Made Disaster to Global Mega-Opportunity." The piece says:

The Chinese method is the only method that has proved successful [in fighting the virus], is a message spread online in China by influencers, including many essentially promoting propaganda. ... it is certainly a message that seems to be resonating with opinion leaders around the world.

On the same day, unlike China that had one epicentre, Wuhan city, the US now overtakes China with most cases reporting multiple epicentres simultaneously.
Also on Mar 16, the US stocks ended sharply lower with the Dow posting its worst point drop in history. But some showed a faint hint of uncertain hope.
On Mar 17, according to an article on Chinese version of Quora, Zhihu, chief Chen Wei and her team with CanSino Biologics officially initiated a Phase-1 clinical trial for COVID-19 vaccine at the Wuhan lab, Hubei China, which Bloomberg News confirmed. — Click HERE, then set its time period as 1 year, and see when the graph has started to move up.
Also on Mar 17, China's state media, China Global TV Network (CGTN), has produced YouTube videos for Middle Eastern audiences to spread the opinion that the US has engineered COVID-19 events.
Also on Mar 17, Al Jazeera reported that the US President has been criticized for repeatedly referring to the coronavirus as the "Chinese Virus" as critics saying Trump is "fueling bigotry."
• China's Xinhua News tweeted "Racism is not the right tool to cover your own incompetence."
• Tucker Carlson asked: "Why would America's media take China's side amid coronavirus pandemic?"
• Also, Mr. Bill Gates: "We should not call this the Chinese virus."
On Mar 19, for the first time, China reports zero local infections.
Also on Mar 19, Al Jazeera published an analysis report, titled "Coronavirus erodes Trump's re-election prospects."
On Mar 22, Bloomberg reports that China's mobile carriers lost 21 million users during this pandemic event. It's said to be the first net decline since starting to report monthly data in 2000.
On Mar 26, EURACTV reports that China cashes in off coronavirus, selling Spain $466 million in supplies. However, Spain returns 9,000 "quick result" test kits to China, because they were deemed substandard. — Especially the sensibility of the test was around 30 percent, when it should be higher than 80 percent.
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On Apr 03, Germany and other governments are bolstering corporate defenses to address worries that coronavirus-weakened companies could be easy prey for bargain hunting by China's state owned businesses.
On Apr 05, New York Times says "Trump Again Promotes Use of Unproven Anti-Malaria Drug (hydroxychloroquine)."
On Apr 06, a Democratic State Rep. Karen Whitsett from Detroit credits hydroxychloroquine and President Trump for "saving her in her battle with the coronavirus."
On Apr 07, the US CDC removed the following part from its website.

Although optimal dosing and duration of hydroxychloroquine for treatment of COVID-19 are unknown, some U.S. clinicians have reported anecdotally different hydroxychloroquine dosing such as: 400mg BID on day one, then daily for 5 days; 400 mg BID on day one, then 200mg BID for 4 days; 600 mg BID on day one, then 400mg daily on days 2-5.

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☞ If there were ever a time for people not to be partisan and tribal, the time has come: We need to be ever vigilant and attentive to all kinds of disinformation & misinformation to see it better as well as to be sharp in our lives. — We really do need to come together.
☞ At first, I was going to draw up a conspiracy theory-oriented list focused on Team-Z, especially Mr. Gates. However, although it's nothing new tbh, recently many chats and discussions seem overflowing with disinformation & misinformation which is, in my opinion, particularly painful at a time like this. Hence, this post became a vanilla list that's just recorded the notable events. — We all are subject to misinformation, miscalculation, and misjudgment. But the clearer the picture becomes the better we can identify Funkspiel.
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☞ Immediate Aftermath pt.2.a
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☞ Feasible Timeline of the Operation
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☞ Go Back to the Short Story.
----

What are the best financial websites?
The best financial sites offer a wealth of resources to people ranging from beginning investors to seasoned professionals. Some of these websites come from recognized leading financial media sources while others offer personal and investment financial advice from bloggers who have been successful. We have compiled a list of the best financial sites and finance blogs that you should include in your list of reading.
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Learn about the best financial websites and financial blogs from M1 Finance Users of the best financial websites today
According to data from Statista, the top three leading finance websites by visitors include Yahoo! Finance with 70 million visitors per month, MSN Money Central with 65 million monthly visitors, and CNN Money with 50 million monthly visitors. The need for financial education and literacy is clear. According to the Financial Educators Council, the average test result for financial literacy across all age groups was a low 63%.
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Read about the best financial websites and financial blogs from M1 Finance The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal has been released in print format since 1989. Online, it is reviewed as one of the top financial websites around the world. Readers from across the globe subscribe to the Wall Street Journal for its business news. The WSJ also offers its readers email alerts about news and stock information.
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The Balance
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Valuable information for new investors
Warning. Looooong post. TL:DR in the bottom.
Recently I have been chatting a ton with people who are very new to investing. I don’t claim to have mastered anything, however I have been able to help a lot of people through chats and messages. I’ve given advice and answered questions, and through that I found out a lot of problems new people run into, and decided to compile some of the points I found important. I will start this with the primary compiled information I usually give people when prompted, and then move on to specific questions I found important. A final note is that this is my own opinion and views, so feel free to disagree! I’d love input, even if I feel confident about this advice.
First off I’d recommend searching for posts about starting out & learning the basics, both here and on other investing/trading subreddits. The question has been asked hundreds of times, and you’ll find some amazing answers if you look.
The first thing you need to understand is that finance is all about information. If you want to learn, you need to take in information. All of the information. Books, news, financial statements, press releases and earning calls. Read everything. You will find hundreds of words you don’t understand, so look them up (investopedia have a majority of them). In the beginning you will struggle, however, as time goes by, you will start to understand. If you do not like reading, learn to like it. There is no way around this. If you find yourself investing without reading tons, you are going to lose.
Books to recommend: Anything written by Warren Buffet, A random walk down wall street by Burton Malkiel (how I started), Stress test by Timothy Geithner & The intelligent investor (“thick” but all important).
Pick out your favorite company in the world, and check if they are public. If they are, head over to their investor relations page and read the transcript to their latest earnings call. Read their financial statement (10-Q). If you don’t understand a word, look it up. This is frustrating but required. This method of reading, finding things you do not understand and looking it up (and learning it), will be the absolute unavoidable key to improvement.
There are 3 things you should consider buying as your first investment:
Large cap companies. These are the most risky you should consider buying. These large companies (Apple, Banks, Microsoft, 3M, JnJ, Walmart and the like) are stable, but can for sure give you a great return.
Specific ETFs. An ETF is a basket of stocks, often with some sort of focus. It gives you instant diversification. The specific ETFs are less risky than the single stocks, but hold risk nonetheless. Specific ETFs are baskets of stocks of varying number, letting you buy one security, and get a tiny portion of many companies. This lets you bet on a sector. Say you think that robotics and automation is the future, you can bet on that by investing in $ROBO. Other examples of these are $KWEB, chinese e-com, $FNG, media and tech, $ITA, aerospace and defence and $SOXX, semiconductors. These let you invest in a promising industry, without having the risk of a single company failing.
Lastly, and by far the best choice, is indexing. These are ETFS like $VOO, $VTI, $VWO and $VOOG, and is a way to take on the least amount of risk while still gaining along with the market. You get a wide basket of stocks, focusing on things like the S&P500 ($VOO), which is an index of large (minimum 6.1 billion USD) US companies. Historically , you can expect 7% annual gain here. That’s realistic. Anything offering much more than that without risk has tons of risk without disclosing it, per definition. $VOOG indexes growth companies, focusing less on the giants and more on the up and coming. $VWO focuses on emerging markets, getting places like brazil, russia and all over asia. Indexing is by far the best choice, and will very often gain you a steady growth. The final and great choice is $VTI, which is the global basket which contains the market as a whole.
Remember, if you have to ask simple questions, you should be indexing. Asking questions is very important and a great way to learn, however, you should not make specific investments unless you can make the call 100% yourself with confidence. If you are not sure, you are making a mistake in purchasing.
Lastly, and honestly most importantly, here is a list of things you should ALWAYS be able to answer before buying a security, equity or derivative:

• Why am I getting this instead of an index? Where is the upside?
• If the stock goes up, what action do I take? When do I sell? At what price or % gain.
• If the stock goes down, when do I sell? At what % loss or a price.
• What risks are there? How does the worst case realistic scenario look like?
• Why am I making this investment right now? Is there a better time?
• What exactly am I buying?*

And finally, always, without exception, perform your own Due Diligence. Don’t take advice from other people without understanding the situation yourself. If you have to ask questions, you should not own the equity. Ask about what you do not own. If you have to ask questions about an equity you already own, you have messed up, and should rethink your strategy.
A last but VITAL note is to keep a journal. You should note down every stock purchase you make or decided to not make, noting down the stock, price, date and answers to the 6 questions. This will help massively over time, where you can look back how you felt before and why you made decisions. It helps to keep temporary emotion out, as well as self reflecting which is the most vital learning method of any craft.
Q&A
Should I buy cheap stocks like $XXX for 4 dollars per share, or expensive stocks like $YYY for 500 dollars per share? IT DOES NOT MATTER. The price of the individual share have no effect whatsoever on the price of the company, how much you will gain or how much risk there is. If you buy 10 A-stocks for 1 dollashare, and if you buy 1 B-stock for 10 dollars/share, both these purchases are EXACTLY the same, in practice. If stock A gains 10% you earn $1.00, if stock B gains 10% you earn $1.00. Then the stocks are valued at $1.1 and $11 respectively. But there is no different. Don’t let the price of the share fool you. The only thing that matters is the market cap, which is the (number of shares*price of 1 share). The market cap is the cost of ALL the shares in the entire company. Some stocks like being expensive to seem exclusive and expensive, but it’s really the company's choice.
What numbers matter the most for the companies so I can compare? Well, that's complicated. DIfferent investors value different things. Some value P/E (price per earnings) and some value margin changes. You have to decide for yourself what matters, which leads to tons and tons of reading. Really, if you don't like reading and analyzing, this isn't something for you. Look at ETFs then. As a rule of thumb, 1 or 2 numbers is not enough to gauge the HUGE and COMPLEX being that is a corporation, so don’t get caught on something like P/E. Compare everything.
Will I be able to profit? Probably. As a new investor, especially a young one, will see both success and failure over time. This is natural. I recommend investing a smaller amount of money. Either you will gain a few % and be excited to learn and continue, or you will lose a few % and you find the ultimate opportunity to analyze what your mistake was.
Is $XXX enough money? Probably. It depends on your broker and fees. Any amount invested into the market is great, and a 10% increase is a 10% increase no matter how much you invest. Depending on your broker though, it might be easier or harder. With high commission, a smaller amount will be eaten by fees. With smaller amount, some expensive stocks (see $BRK.A) might be out of your reach. This shouldn’t be too much of a problem though.
What broker should I use? The best one for you! Hard question. It is country dependent. Look around. You want low commission and any perks you require. To start out, depending on how much money you have to invest, look for low-commission brokers. $0 - $3 is a good range per stock purchase. If you pay more than 2% on your investment, you lose 2% to buy in. This would generally cause stock to not be worth to buy. So do some thinking on your own, to invest you will have to get used to it. Some brokers let you buy partial shares as well, which might be a plus if your capital is low to buy the more expensive stocks.
What should I invest in? There are so many things! Like said above, cheap funds and common stock are good places to start. They are the core of investing, and should be your start. After that, move on and understand bonds. It will be all important during your career in investing. On top of that there are warrants, options, forex, commodities, and all kinds of additional derivatives. Stay clear of those completely until you can confidently make the call to try it out.
My stock increased/decreased in value. Should I sell?
Asking this question means that you weren’t thorough enough when you made the purchase. You should always have it written down on a paper. When do you get out? A valid answer is never. If you believe in the business and they prove themself strong, why ever sell? Some people like selling if they gain 30% or lose 30%. Some do the same on 15% respective 10%. It comes down to how much long term faith you have in the company, when you’ll need the money and what your risk tolerance is. Personally, when I buy a company, I will ignore it until something changes in the core business. I re-analyze each company each earning. It takes a lot of time, but its my method. If I buy something more high risk, I will sell at a set loss-% (20-40% loss) and the same on gain.
How does taxes work and how should I plan for taxes? Taxes are hard and complicated, but it is something you must understand how it works. Capital gains taxes are vital to understand. Sadly, they work differently in each country, so there is no easy answer except for you to look up it yourself. But know it, it is vital.
To end, these are the most important 4 rules of learning how to do all this:

• Read. Everything.
• Keep a journal and record the answers to all 6 questions each time you make a purchase, or decided in the end to not.
• Each time in your reading if you come over a concept, word or idea that you do not understand, get used to looking it up and learning what it is. It’s key.
• When you succeed, analyze if you got lucky or if your actual reasoning was the correct call. When you fail, analyze what your mistake was and write it down in your journal. Both are vital.

TL:DR: Investing is about reading. You should probably start by reading this now or give up. If you read it all, success! Keep going!
Disclaimer: Don't invest money that you can't afford to lose. You might lose all your funds. Probably don't.
lykosen11

Republic of Turkey

Ministry of Finance

[Nov/Dec 2048]
Turkey is at the tail-end of an economic slowdown, caused by fiscal uncertainty in a time of war and the globalized effects of geopolitical risk. However, the Turkish economy remains fundamentally strong, with phenomenal growth potential in its new territories in Azerbaijani Turkey and new previously-untapped trade relationships with the Middle East, Iran, and Central Asia.
The resulting growth will be of tremendous benefit to not just Turkey, but the European economy as a whole. As a close partner of the European Union, via political alignment, our membership in the Council of Europe, and free trade agreement, Turkey comes to the European Union to establish deeper monetary ties.
We propose a special relationship between the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (TCMB) and the European Central Bank (ECB).
While the Turkish Lira has gained international prominence due to the growing influence of the Turkish economy, the need to maintain a "war chest" of foreign exchange reserves in order to guarantee financial, fiscal, and monetary stability means productive financial resources are tied up unnecessarily.
Turkey typically maintains forex reserves equivalent to ~9% of GDP. By comparison, while Eurozone countries keep lower levels due to no need to back up their currency, the Bank of England and Reserve Bank of Australia's reserves are ~5% and ~3.4% of GDP, respectively.
We believe our mutual interests can be helped by reducing the burden on the TCMB to back up the Turkish Lira and financial system, freeing up financial resources to stimulate the economy.
The plan would mean the TCMB becomes eligible to administer Emergency Liquidity Assistance to solvent financial institutions in Turkey. Unlike European national banks which are members of the Eurosystem, the TCMB would not be autonomous in its decision making, subject to approval and oversight by the ECB itself. (m: national banks can fund financial institutions independently via this mechanism up to certain durations / amounts)
The arrangement would allow solvent Turkish institutions with adequate collateral (aka this isn't just free cash) to receive liquidity in times of financial instability, allowing the Turkish banking sector to lean both on the TCMB and ECB. Operations would be conducted, of course, in Euros -- meaning the ECB is not exposed to exchange rate risk when dealing with Turkish banks.
Eligible Turkish institutions would need to register with the ECB, meeting their criteria and subject to their oversight.
Sharing the responsibility of lender of last resort will allow financial resources to be freed up, giving an important boost to the Turkish economy and Europe-Turkey trade. We expect to move to a long-term band of 6-7% of GDP in foreign exchange reserves, freeing up roughly $38 billion.

*Introductions: I'm joskye. A cryptocurrency investor and SDC holder. *
...
Hi again. This is the third part in our ongoing series on how to trade better and determine intelligent investments in cryptocurrency for the future.

• In part 1 I talked about the importance of selling enough to make back your principle investment i.e. if you buy something at $300 and it rises to $600 in value, sell $300 to eliminate all future risk of personal loss e.g. if that asset falls to $150 in value after (which can happen easily since suchvolatility is very common in cryptocurrency). In cryptocurrency trading/investments a 100% return of investment should always prompt you to consider selling 1/2 your stack.
  
• In part 2 I talked about the psychology behind fear of missing out; i.e. the dangers of buying during a sudden rise in an asset's price and how to make the most of such rallies whilst minimising the risks involved in joining them.
  
• In part 3a I discussed The importance of a value proposition and the absolute need for any cryptocurrency you invest in to already generate or have the potential to generate revenue in a manner completely independent of it's speculative value as dictated by daily market prices.
  

Part 3b continues where I left off with a discussion about price metrics specifically, what determines the price and the importance of liquidity:
...
The day traders:
As I mentioned in my previous article, as of writing almost every cryptocurrency is determined purely by speculative value.
Thus the absolute price of a given cryptocurrency is determined solely by the day traders and specifically the last price it was agreed that currency would be sold at with confirmation of that price by a buyer who bought it.
People say lots of things determine the price; marketcap, liquidity, value proposition, revenues generated by the coin, the number of said coin in circulation but ultimately it comes down to the number of buyers and number of sellers competing for that coin.
Perhaps the other thing is the size of said market relative to the money held by the players in it.
For instance in cryptocurrency Bitcoin is still the biggest player in the game. It carries a per unit price of $900 per coin. There are currently 16,090,137 (16 million) coins in circulation giving it a total marketcap value of [$900 x 16090137 =] $14481123300 or 14.48 billion USD.

• This is 85% of the current cryptocurrency marketcap. (The total marketcap of all cryptocurrencies as of writing is 17.17 billion USD.)
  
• Compare and contrast Shadowcash (SDC) which has a unit price of $1.27 with 6,616814 coins in circulation giving it a total marketcap value of [$1.27 x 6616814=] $8392766 or 8.39 million USD.
  
• Thus Shadowcash in comparison to Bitcoin is a tiny cap of the cryptocurrency sphere. Shadowcash has a total value that is only 0.06% of Bitcoin when comparing marketcap's.
  

Shadowcash looks even more meagre compared to the total cryptocurrency marketcap with only 0.048% of the total cryptocurrency sphere.
To any Shadowcash holders despairing at this point, relax. There are over 707 cryptocurrencies trading as of writing and SDC holds the 27th ranking in terms of market cap. In such a competitive field, filled with scams that's pretty good. Moreso when you consider that SDC is a legitimate technology and is currently probably very undervalued.
...
Lets look at the rich list for bitcoin:

• The top holder has 124,956 Bitcoin valued at $1,12460400 or 1.24 billion USD.
  
• The top SDC holder has 1027261 SDC valued at $1,304621 or 1.4 million USD.
  
• Thus the wealth of the top SDC holder is 1.16% that of the wealth of the top Bitcoin holder.
  

Why did I just talk about this?

• Well they say that a big fish can easily occupy, make a splash in and empty a small pond just by diving in.

In cryptocurrency I see this happening on the markets all the time. Indeed market manipulation effects every single cryptocurrency eventually.
...
Market manipulation!
Large holders of valuable, high marketcap coins will often make multiple small volume purchases of less valuable, low marketcap coins. Often this will follow announcements regarding developments in that low marketcap coin.

• An example of low volume ordering is buying 1 SDC at $1.20, 0.5 SDC at $1.2001, 5 SDC at $1.2010, 3 SDC at $1.21, 10 SDC at $1.22 and 0.11 SDC at $1.24, but then leaving someone else to fill the order for 100 SDC priced at $1.242.
  
• Thus by spending $23.77, in low volume purchases the buyer can raise the market cap of SDC from ($1.20 * 6,616814 coins) $7.94 million to (1.24 * 6,616814) $8.20 million! (4.2% increase).
  

Low volume buying in a market with low daily trading volume can gradually drive up the price attracting an influx of buyers into that coin; often they will make larger volume purchases of it which helps drive up the price much further. This will trigger a further chain of buyers experiencing FOMO (fear of missing out, detailed in Part 2) who will drive up the price even further. The price will pump. Often will smaller cap cryptocurrencies this may result in a sudden 20, 40, 60 or even +100% increase in value often over a very short time space (1-2 days, 1-2 weeks maximum).

• Often the original purchaser who triggered these events will have accumulated a lot of said cryptocurrency cheaply prior to or during the early stages of the pump and will wind up selling the majority of his/her's purchases when the price reaches a peak; usually when the daily/hourly trading volume on that coin starts to decline but sufficient buyers are still available.
  
• This results in a sudden or often more gradual dump in the coins value, usually by falling by 75% or more of the rise.
  

The only way to discern if the sudden rise in coin value is due to pre-rigged market manipulation is to look at:

• the value proposition of that coin (discussed extensively in part 3a of this guide)
• the order book
• the depth chart
• the pattern of change on daily trading volume (and liquidity)
• the price charts (15 minute, hourly, 1 day, 3 day, 7 day, 1 month, 6 months)
• the news cycle relevant to that coin

You are looking for organic, gradual growth based on a solid value proposition. Sudden large spikes in value should make you pause and wonder if it's worth waiting for a gradual correction (organic drop) in price before entering your buy order.
Do not fall for a pump and dump. Stick to the lessons covered in previous parts of this guide (especially part 3a and 2) and you will be much less likely to lose money in the long run trading and investing in cryptocurrencies.
...
The pattern of change on daily trading volume, the order book and liquidity:
Lets look at SDC and Bitcoin again. This time we are going to compare the daily trading volume (last 24 hours) in USD.

• In the last 24 hours (dated 8th Jan 2016), SDC traded a total volume of $26,033. This is 0.01% of all USD daily trading volume on exchanges and only 0.39% of the total marketcap of SDC.
• In contrast Bitcoin traded $163,306,776 ($0.16 Billion) over the same 24 hour period. This is 76.15% of USD daily trading volume on exchanges and only 1.12% of it's total marketcap.

I'd just like to use this opportunity to point out and reinforce the idea that day traders not holders dictate the daily price of an asset. I'd also like to point out daily global trading volume on Forex is $4800 billion which makes Bitcoin a very small fish in the broader arena of global finance and trade i.e. Bitcoin is still very vulnerable to all the price manipulation tactics and liquidity issues I am going to be describing in this article by bigger players with richer pockets.

• The numbers means that just because the marketcap of Bitcoin is $14 billion, that does not mean that there is truly $14 billion worth of fiat currencies (USD, Yuan, Euro etc) in Bitcoin; the total fiat volume is merely an estimate based on current price and number of Bitcoin in circulation.

The daily trading volume also gives you an idea of how much fiat currency you can invest into a given cryptocurrency before you suddenly shift the price.

• For example based on the 24 hour daily trading volume for SDC I know that if I blindly spent $15,000 (57% of the daily trading volume) buying SDC without any regard to the price, I can be confident that I will likely cause the price of SDC to go up significantly.
• In contrast spending $15,000 to buy Bitcoin (0.0092% of the daily trading volume) without regards to it's price, I can be confident that it will not likely cause a significant rise in the daily spot price of Bitcoin.

A sudden rise in coin price heavily out of proportion to the rise in daily trading volume should be the first sign to alert you to a pump & dump scam.

• It implies a low volume trading at low prices to trick the unseasoned trader to perpetuate higher volume, high price buys.
• If daily trading volume cannot organically increase to sustain the price, it will eventually fall when the original pumper (or group of pumpers) sell to take their profits.

Daily trading volume should show a steady increase over time with sustained buy support at new price levels; this is a good marker of organic, sustainable growth.

• This does not always have to be the case! Sufficiently large price movements (several 1000%) can significantly raise the next absolute low in price for the mid-term (months) even if that is several 100% lower than the peak!
  
• Conversely declining trading volumes indicate loss of interest in the coin and a price that is potentially more prone to and at risk of price manipulation with smaller amounts of fiat/bitcoin (than if higher daily trading volumes existed).
  
• Finally the fact that daily fiat trading volume for Bitcoin and Shadowcash is such a small percentage of it's total marketcap reinforces the idea that price is set by day traders not by holders!
  

...
For more detail you can now look at the depth chart:
The depth chart is very useful to know how much fiat currency is required to cause the spot price of a given cryptocurrency to rise or fall by a given amount.

• The depth chart groups different bids (buy orders) and asks (sell orders) by price and volume e.g. 17.739 bitcoin worth of SDC are currently on sale at poloniex for 0.00117500 bitcoin each ($1.07 per coin) and 0.149 Bitcoin are on sale at the current spot price of 0.00135750 Bitcoin ($1.24)
  
• So as of writing, I can see (from the charts) to raise the price of SDC from 0.00135750 Bitcoin ($1.24) to 0.00181381 Bitcoin ($1.66) I would need to spend 26 Bitcoin ($23783).
  

NB the price of most cryptocurrencies is expressed in Bitcoin because it has the largest market cap and daily trading volume of all cryptocurrencies by a very large margin and because with a few exceptions (Ethereum, Monero) most cryptocurrencies do not have routes to directly purchase via fiat currency without first purchasing Bitcoin.

• The depth chart shows me how many coins I can buy without significantly increasing the price and how many coins I can sell within a given price range. It gives me an idea of the liquidity and volatility of the market i.e. if I buy SDC right now and need to sell it later today or tomorrow for fiat, what is the realistic probability I can get my entire amount in fiat returned to me in the amount originally spent.

Liquidity is super important. People often complain about a market lacking liquidity but that is often because they are trading in fiat volumes which far exceed the daily trading fiat volumes of the cryptocurrency they are referring to. If you are investing or trading in a cryptocurrency, always factor in the your personal liquidity and need for liquidity relative to that of the cryptocurrency you are investing in. In other words don't expect to make a profit next day selling 'cryptocurrency x' if the size your single buy order composes >90% of the buy orders on the market for 'cryptocurrency x' that day (indeed in such a scenario be very prepared to sell at a loss next day if you absolutely have to)!

• The depth chart also gives me an idea of where significant supports exists (price zones with large buy orders relative to the depth chart) to determine the true base price (in conjunction with daily trading volume) and where significant resistances exist (price zones with large sell orders relative to the rest of the depth chart) to determine what the majority of sellers think the coin is truly worth. Be wary though as buy walls (large supports) and sell walls (large resistances) can be moved at any time.

There are certain patterns on a depth chart that make me believe a significant, sustained price rise is imminent: One example occurs when there is a very large volume of buy orders (>25% of total buy volume within 5% of current price) very close to the current (spot) price, and a very large number of sell orders close to but significantly above the spot price (approx 25% total sell volume within 10% of current price) and especially if the total buy order volume is a significantly higher percentage than it has previously been. This simply indicates high demand at current price which may soon outstrip supply. Again I stress that these patterns can be manipulated easily by wealthy traders.

• It is up to you to study the depth charts and discern the patterns. You will learn more about day trading this way.

...
The order book is another way of looking at the depth chart and allows you to see the specific transactions occurring that compose daily trading volume by the second!
I find it useful because it allows me to identify:

• If there is a string of low volume orders that can be filled to pump the price (or conversely a string of low volume sell orders to dump it). This can play on the psychology of the entire market as many people aren't simply aware of how the manipulations occur; most people simply look at the price!
  
• Where resistances to price change occur and how much money it will take to break them (i.e. if I am day trading to make a profit via pumping, is it worth me spending X to clear a sell wall to encourage others to buy and push up the price further or do I need to spend so much of my capital that should I fail to stimulate buy orders, I become vulnerable to a dump in coin price with effective subsequent loss of fiat money).
  
• The presence of automated trading bots rapidly cycling a buy or sell order of fixed volume between a series of prices that dynamically adjust with the overall trend in price movements. Bots can be your best friend (to pumping or dumping price) if you know how to manipulate them!
  

...
The price charts:
Discussions about price charts could be endless. I'm not going to go into too much detail, mostly because I'm an investor who believes the value proposition, good consistent development, decent marketing and communications will ultimately trump spot prices and adverse (or positive) short term price trends in the future.

• I'm also going to skim this because I'm not as versed in this subject as I'd like to be.
  
• I personally use the candle bar charts on Poloniex to look at 15 minute and daily candles on the hourly, daily, weekly and monthly charts.
  
• I combine this with charts on Bittrex which can calculate the RSI (to estimate if a coin is overbought or oversold) and Bollinger Bands (again to help estimate if a coin is overbought or oversold).
  
• I usually look at the overall direction of trading over a period of several days, compare it to the direction and trends over the last month. I then try to interpret it in the context of the daily trading volume and depth charts.
  
• I often get my predictions on short term price movement wrong if I only look at candle charts without factoring in depth charts, order book and daily trading volume patterns! I have a lot more learning to do on technical analysis.
  
• The charts do often reveal mid/long term supports and resistances in price!
  
• Investopedia is a good place to start learning about different mathematical techniques to analyse charts (including any terms used in these articles).
  
• I'm a big fan of u/kustonoy who inhabits the Ethtrader sub. I personally feel his analysis of the short term markets are generally pretty good. You should never be too lazy to not do your own regular market analysis especially if trading short term, but if you want a good reference point, I suggest following him.
  

...
The news cycle:

• I've mentioned this lower down the list because for intra-day and day traders and even to some extent investors, the news cycle matters very little unless it directly affects the value proposition in some way.
  
• If a news event does result in real maturation of the proposed value proposition (such that the technology has confirmed a new sustained user base or revenue stream) then it might justify a sustained rise in price regardless of the volatility achieved reaching and following the peak.
  
• Some assets may have nothing but an endless stream of good news which meets the above criteria yet it's valuation fails to increase. This is likely a sign that a larger player is deliberately manipulating the market to accumulate more of that asset to sell very high later (I believe Ethereum has fallen victim to this recently).
  

...
Other interesting points: The 'coin x' scenario and the ridiculousness of marketcap:
'Coin X' is an imaginary hypothetical coin. There are only 10 in circulation. It has no value proposition beyond it's speculative value i.e. it will never generate a revenue independent of it's speculative value.

• If 'coin x' had only 10 in circulation, was indivisible and each coin had a value of $3 billion, the market cap of 'coin x' would surpass Bitcoin!
• If all 10 coins were not on sale then 'coin x' would have a value of zero.
• If 9 people had bought 'coin x' at $1 and the 10th person bought it at $3 billion, it's marketcap would still be $30 billion. This does not mean there is $30 billion of fiat stored in coin X.
• If an 11th buyer came along and bought 'coin x' at $1.20 the price of coin X would fall to $1.20 and the marketcap of 'coin x' would be $12.0.
• This still does not mean there is $12 of fiat stored in coin x.
• This does not mean everyone can sell 'coin x' at $1.20.
• A new buyer blind to the purely speculative nature of 'coin x' looking at the trend charts could try to argue it is now extremely undervalued and a great buy or possibly was a grand scam and untouchable.
• Either way the next price at which 'coin x' is bought/sold is purely arbitrary and determined by the patience of the seller and the impatience of the buyer.
• [Edit]: I could also issue 10 more of 'coin x' and if it's unit price remained $1.20 the market cap would instantly double from $12 to $24!

I'd like to point out the similarities between ZCash and 'coin x' (especially during it's launch).
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Lessons:

• Marketcap is derived from the price, not the other way around. Until a cryptocurrency generates significant revenue independent of it's speculative valuation this will remain the case.
  
• Price is determined by the day traders, not by the holders.
  
• The spot price of any given cryptocurrency is determined by the patience of the seller and the impatience of the buyer.
  
• Price of most cryptocurrencies is derived from bitcoin unless they have a direct fiat gateway. Unless a significant amount of trading volume occurs via the fiat gateway, the price of that cryptocurrency is still heavily dependent on the price of bitcoin.
  
• Bitcoin is (for now) is the gold standard of cryptocurrencies. Because it has the largest marketcap (by a very massive margin).
  
• Market manipulation means that large holders in more valuable currencies (large marketcaps) can tamper with and set the value of much smaller currencies (i.e. smaller marketcaps).
  
• Bitcoin's price itself can be manipulated by investment banks, governments or firms who trade in multi billions of USD daily. This is because the daily trading volume is almost 5 trillion trillion USD (which is several thousand times larger
  
• There is nothing wrong with investing or trading in cryptocurrencies with low daily trading volumes and marketcaps, just be concious not to put more money into them than their long term buy support can handle and only invest what you can afford to lose.
  
• The concept of liquidity in a market is important relative to the amount of fiat you are planning to invest or trade in it.
  
• Whether day trading or investing, pick cryptocurrencies with good fundamentals i.e. excellent development teams, good marketing and strong value propositions that will provide the cryptocurrency in question use and value independent of speculative valuations. You are less likely to get manipulated or scammed in the long run that way especially if you are a holder.
  
• Be very weary of trading or investing small amounts of money in larger markets that allow leveraged trading. Those markets will behave irrationally and not follow the fundamentals in the short term.
  
• It is up to you to study the depth charts, order books, candle bar charts, daily trading volumes and news cycle to discern the patterns. The price is a composite of this and the psychology of people who don't understand this. You will learn more about day trading this way and more importantly learn to trade/invest independent of the price.
  

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Finally why am I writing this?
I mean I just spoke openly about how SDC and indeed any cryptocurrencies (or purely speculative assets) price can be manipulated in the short term.
Well SDC has an incredible value proposition that could generate and attract large amounts of non-speculative fiat currency into it's ecosystem. I already covered that in part 3a (https://www.reddit.com/Shadowcash/comments/5lhh6m/the_intelligent_investors_guide_to_cryptocurrency/).
For this reason I think the short term speculative pump and dumps in SDC will eventually be replaced by a more sustained, larger buy support. I suspect this will occur when the marketplace is released and certain other announcements are released.
For this reason I declare my opinion that Shadowcash is the best cryptocurrency investment of 2016 and I believe it will be again by March 2017.
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References:

• Coin market capitalisations and data including rich lists derived from:

1. Coinmarketcap rankings: https://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/ 2. Coinmarketcap daily trading volumes https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/volume/24-hou 3. Bitinfocharts - Top 100 Richest Bitcoin addresses: https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses.html 4. Crypto ID - Shadowcash Rich list: https://chainz.cryptoid.info/sdc/#!rich 

• Investopedia: http://www.investopedia.com/
• Daily FX volumes rise to $4.84 trillion in Jan - CLS, Feb 10th 2016, Reuters, http://www.reuters.com/article/global-forex-volumes-idUSL8N15P2VA

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Disclaimer: All prices and values given are as of time of writing (Midday 08-Jan-2016). I am not responsible for your financial decisions, nor am I advising you take a particular financial position. Rather I am sharing my experiences and hoping you form your own opinions and insights from them. Full disclosure: I have long positions in Ethereum (ETH), Shadowcash (SDC), ICONOMI (ICN), Augur (REP) and Digix (DGD).