And social media has made online shopping even easier than it already was. Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Pinterest, and now TikTok, have integrated shopping links into ads and posts in an attempt to build their e-commerce business—and to get you to spend.

If you’ve ever purchased something from an Instagram ad, you’re not alone. In fact, 57% of millennials have spent money they hadn’t planned to spend based on something they saw on social media, according to a 2018 study from Allianz Life Insurance. Shopping online also lessens the “pain of paying,” because it can all seem so easy to buy something these days, often without even taking out your credit card.

Jargon Hack.

What is impulse spending?

Impulse Spending

An unplanned decision to buy something on the spot.

Find out

With the temptation to add that virtual shirt to your cart higher than ever, here are five ways to curb your appetite for “social spending.”

• Clear your credit card information from your phone. Even if you get all the way to the checkout stage of the social media shopping rabbit hole, you still have to find your credit card and type out the information before you submit your order. If your credit card information auto-fills, that is one fewer barrier to making that impulse purchase. Try clearing your credit card history from your internet settings.
• Be careful with digital wallets, which store your passwords and card information digitally on your phone. They’re becoming increasingly popular, allowing you to pay in seconds, often with just the tap of your phone. If you use a digital wallet, consider adding just your debit card, which will take money directly from your checking account.
• Set a limit for the amount of time you spend on apps. U.S. consumers spent 74 minutes per day on social media in 2018.  Android phones and iPhones let you set time limits on phone usage, and for specific apps.
• Mute people who make you feel inferior. Millennials—55% of them—experience the “fear of missing out,” or FOMO, according to the same Allianz Life Insurance survey, and 88% of millennials said that their FOMO is exacerbated by social media. To minimize FOMO, and the desire to spend money, think about muting or unfollowing the people who never seem to wear the same outfit twice, or who are always going out to dinner.
• Indulge in a different social media vice. Maybe you like to shop on social media before you go to bed or while you’re on your lunch break. While quitting your social media vice cold turkey might be preferable, you may want to switch to another social media vice that doesn’t cost anything. Consider replacing your social media shopping routine with a quick binge of Dr. Pimple Popper videos or a deep dive of the number of comedians making videos on Instagram.

Consideration: It’s okay to splurge once in a while. You can work an occasional Instagram purchase into the discretionary spending part of your budget. Having an actual dollar that you designate for splurges can help.

Of course, the best way to put a stop to social media spending is to delete all of your social media accounts. But if that sounds impossible, consider putting on some of the speed brakes we’ve just discussed.

The post Five Tips to Stop Shopping on Social Media appeared first on Stash Learn.

On July 6, Zuckerberg edged past Buffett, the founder of business conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway.  (Find out more here).

The three richest people globally are now all founders of tech companies. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is the wealthiest person in the world, with a fortune estimated at $143 billion. Following Bezos is Microsoft founder Bill Gates, whose personal wealth is estimated at $93.4 billion.

What’s net worth?

In simplest terms, net worth is what you own, after you’ve subtracted what you owe. In addition to Facebook stock, Zuckerberg reportedly owns $200 million in real estate and $2.5 billion in cash.

Value vs. growth

Buffett, 87, has long been known for his skill picking company stocks and investing in companies that increase in value over time.

Buffett built Berkshire Hathaway from a struggling cotton mill and cloth spinning company he purchased in 1962, into a conglomerate that owns dozens of companies. The company’s stock has increased a staggering 1.8 million percent over the last 50 years.

Berkshire Hathaway is what’s known as a value company because the companies it owns or invests in can often be undervalued compared to similar companies in the market. Investors, such as Buffett, try to invest in these companies before their share price increases.

Facebook, founded by Zuckerberg from his Harvard University dorm room in 2004, is a very different kind of company.  It’s what’s known as a growth company, because its employee size, revenue, and stock price have grown very quickly since the founding.

More background

Zuckerberg’s wealth increased by nearly $9 billion this year, according to news sources. Bezos’ wealth has increased by more than $50 billion since last summer.

Both Buffett and Zuckerberg have pledged to give away most of their wealth to charity over time.

As with any type of investing, choosing between value and growth investing largely comes down to assessing the trade-off between the risk and the expected performance.  Generally, a growth strategy is a style of investing that focuses on companies that have the potential to grow their earnings at a high rate, while a value strategy is a style of investing that focuses on companies that may be priced below their actual value.

The post Mark Zuckerberg Now Has a Higher Net Worth Than Warren Buffett appeared first on Stash Learn.

Cambridge Analytica, the data mining company that came under fire for collecting the names and personal information of an estimated 90 million Facebook users so it could compile voter profiles for the Trump presidential campaign, is shutting down.

The company announced its bankruptcy on Wednesday, in a press release.

But its executives and founders have reportedly launched a new business with another name that may do similar kinds of data collecting.

Members of Cambridge Analytica’s executive team have regrouped, and have launched another company, called Emerdata, which may pick up where Cambridge Analytica left off, according to reports.

Why is Cambridge Analytica changing its name?

The company has seen its name dragged through the headlines.

Companies that are the subject of negative publicity, usually for wrongdoing or some other misfortune, often change their names. Bad publicity can cause a company to lose business and even shut down.

Cambridge Analytica, based in Cambridge, England, began to unravel in March, when former employees leaked that the company had stolen personal information from millions of Facebook’s customers.

Cambridge Analytica cited a decrease in the number of customers as the reason for closing its doors. “Despite  Cambridge Analytica’s unwavering confidence that its employees have acted ethically and lawfully…the siege of media coverage has driven away virtually all of the company’s customers and suppliers,” the release said.

Why is a company’s name important?

A company’s name is a vital aspect of its brand. In fact, companies have something called goodwill associated with their names.

Goodwill is the actual monetary value that can be attached to the name, and that value comes from the company simply having customers willing to buy its products and services. Goodwill, however, is often “intangible,” which means it’s hard to assign a specific dollar amount to it.

When a company’s name is tarnished by wrongdoing or some other serious problem, it sometimes can’t recover, as customers abandon it. As a result, companies will sometimes change their names to get out from under a cloud of bad press, or association with previous wrongdoing.

What are other companies that have change their names?

Phillip Morris, formerly one of biggest manufacturers of cigarettes and tobacco products in the U.S., changed its name to Altria in 2002 following a class action suit against the cigarette industry. The suit left Phillip Morris and other tobacco manufacturers on the hook for nearly $250 billion of damages related to the harmful consequences of smoking.

A company’s name is a vital aspect of its brand.

Security firm Blackwater, renamed itself Xe Services, after some of its workers were convicted of killing Iraqi citizens in 2007. Coincidentally, its founder, Erik Prince, is a board member of Esemerdata, according to reports.

Similarly Andersen Consulting became Accenture, in part to distance itself from its association with the Enron scandal. The company’s tax division had audited Enron’s books, even as Enron hid billions of dollars of debt related to bad deals from its investors, which led to Enron’s collapse in 2001. Enron was one of the leading energy producers in the U.S. at the time of its failure.

Is a name change a good or bad thing?

But it’s not always scandal that leads to a name change.

Google became Alphabet in 2015, to signal to the market that the company is about more than its signature search engine product. Alphabet is a holding company that includes Google, but also an advertising business, Youtube, and the Android operating system, among other business lines.

Similarly, Kentucky Fried Chicken became KFC in 1991 as diners became more health conscious, to downplay the “fried” in its name, according to reports. It may also have changed the name to avoid new licensing fees surrounding use of the word “Kentucky” in its brand name.

And here’s a name change that probably needs no explanation: Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web became Yahoo! in 1995.

Interesting fact: Yahoo! is an acronym for Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle. At least, according to Yahoo.

The post Why Do Companies Change Their Names? appeared first on Stash Learn.

Major indexes fell into correction territory again on Monday, led this time by tech stocks.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 700 points by mid-afternoon. Meanwhile, two other key indexes the S and P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 3.1% and 3.5% respectively.

It’s the third time this year that major indexes have experienced steep drops in a single day.

FANG companies got declawed

Stocks of the so-called FANG companies–Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google–were among the hardest hit. Collectively, those companies have lost $324 billion over the last two weeks, according to reports. But it wasn’t just the large market leaders in tech, companies including social media app Snapchat also suffered losses.

Facebook has been facing pressure following news that it leaked personal data from 50 million users to a firm called Cambridge Analytica, which reportedly gathered the information to create psychological profiles of voters during the 2016 elections, without user permission.

Similarly, Amazon has been the subject of President Trump’s wrath in recent days, as the president has made erroneous claims on Twitter about the company’s tax filing status and use of the U.S. Postal Service for parcel deliveries. While the online retailer has been having a tough day, until recently its stock has been up more than 50% in the past year, according to Bloomberg.

And in related news, chip maker Intel, which provides microchips to some of the largest tech companies around, experienced a steep sell off, after news reports said Apple would switch from Intel chips to microprocessors it manufactures itself, by 2020.

Apple is reportedly one of Intel’s biggest sources of revenue.

Is it “Groundhog Day?”

There have been two other stock big sell-offs over the past few months. In February, for example, fears about inflation led to the steepest decline markets had experienced in more than a year.

Stocks of the so-called FANG companies–Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google–were among the hardest hit.

And in late March, fears about a trade war with China sparked a smaller sell-off in the major indexes. On Monday, China announced it would hit back against $60 billion of U.S. tariffs on its own products, with tariffs on 128 U.S. products, including farm and agricultural exports.

Good to know: April is the beginning of the second quarter, which means earnings are due for most public companies for their first quarter. Many of the leading tech companies are expected to report strong earnings, according to some market analysts.

Is this kind of volatility normal?

Yup. Volatility is considered a normal part of market behavior–and corrections aren’t all that unusual.

In fact, according to some experts, volatility tends to appear in markets in clusters. That means large market swings tend to follow each other, just as small market movements do.

Things to think about when markets go down

Consider turning on Auto-Stash and let the power of dollar-cost averaging do its work.

Keep on investing small amounts of money on a regular basis into your diversified Stash portfolio. You’ll automatically capture market highs and purchase more of your investment when it dips.

The post Why Did the Market Drop (Again)? Trump, Tariffs, and Tech appeared first on Stash Learn.

The social networking app surprised investors on Tuesday by reporting strong growth in its fourth quarter.

The creator of the disappearing instant message service has disappointed investors for months with poor earnings and a flagging stock price, which has fallen by nearly half since a high of $27, shortly after its initial public offering in March, 2017.

Why is Snap popping?

Although Snap reported a loss of $350 million in the fourth quarter of 2017, its revenue increased 72% to $286 million compared to the fourth quarter of 2016, according to its most recent filing with Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The revenue increase stemmed from strong ad sales, according to reports. Snapchat’s use of self-serve software for advertisers increased ad impressions–or the number of times an ad is viewed–by 575% in the quarter, according to Reuters.

The social networking app surprised investors on Tuesday by reporting strong growth in its fourth quarter.

Snap also reportedly tripled the number of advertisers buying on its automated auction site over the same time period.

Revenue per user, an indication of how much money each customer earns Snap, increased 46% to $1.53, according to the company. And the number of Snap’s daily active users increased 5% to 187 million in the quarter.

News of the good quarter–the first time the company beat analyst expectations since it went public, according to Bloomberg–sent Snap’s shares up about 40%, to $20.67 in late afternoon trading Wednesday. *

Other things to keep in mind:

• At the time of Snap’s IPO, it was one of the most richly valued Internet startups since Facebook, with a market value of $24 billion.
• Back in November, China’s Tencent, the Internet services giant, swooped in and purchased an additional 12% of the company in after hours trading.
• Snap is still not profitable. It reported a net loss of $350 million in the fourth quarter. It reported a total net loss of $3.4 billion for the full year 2017.

The post Why Snap’s Share Price is Suddenly Popping appeared first on Stash Learn.

An earnings report is a snapshot of a company’s health over a three-month period. Among the things you’ll find are reports about a company’s revenue and profit, which show how much money they’re making and how well they’re using that cash.

You can find out more about earnings reports here.  

What’s inside the report?

The tech sector has been on a growth tear for quite some time, and the NASDAQ, the market index laden with the biggest tech stock names, is up about 25% for the year. The stocks reporting this week are important bellwethers (or indicators) for the technology market, and in some cases for the broader economy.

Something else to keep in mind: the tech sector is volatile, which means the stocks of companies in these industries may be subject to sudden fluctuation. Stocks stumbled in June as investors sold stock to cash in on their profits.

(Lean more about tech stock volatility here.)

Here are some highlights from top tech company earnings reports this week:

• Google parent Alphabet, which reported earnings on Monday, saw its stock fall despite revenue growth of 21% to $26 billion for the quarter. The problem? The price advertisers are paying for ads went down.

Google is the biggest advertiser in the world, and the slip  in revenue is the result of a shift to mobile devices, where the search engine company charges less per click. Desktop ads are still the most profitable for Google. The company’s stock fell nearly 3.5 % after it reported earnings on Monday.

• Facebook, the social media giant, reported its second quarter revenue increased 45% to $9 billion, and its profit jumped 71% to $3.9 billion, driven by advertising revenue. That’s a huge increase by any measure, and especially for a mature company in the social media space, according to analysts. Its stock increased 6% Thursday, following the earnings report. Facebook is now approaching a $500 billion market cap, which puts in the company of tech giants including Apple and Microsoft.
  
• Amazon’s revenue increased by 25% to $38 billion. Profits for the world’s largest e-commerce retailer dropped 77% to $197 million, however, as the company continues to spend on things like new products, warehouse infrastructure, and video content. On Thursday, Amazon’s stock traded at a record high of $1,081 per share, making company founder Jeff Bezos the richest person in the world. He is now worth more than $90.6 billion.
• Twitter reported 328 million monthly active users, about the same as the previous quarter, but fewer than analysts expected. The lack of increase in users sent the company’s stock down 5% on Thursday.

The generally positive earnings for these companies sparked stock market gains last week, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average, a composite index of 30 of the most prominent U.S. stocks, climbed to new heights.

Key takeaways:

Prominent tech companies reported their second quarter earnings this week. Quarterly earnings reports are important snapshots of business health. The tech sector is a rapidly growing part of the U.S. economy, and it continues to drive broader market gains. Tech stocks are volatile, which means they can fluctuate up and down suddenly.

Read more: What The Recent Tech Sell-Off Teaches Us About Diversification  

The post What’s Happening with Tech Earnings? appeared first on Stash Learn.

Every year, financial analysts wait anxiously for Mary Meeker, one of Silicon Valley’s top thinkers, to offer her insights.

The venture capitalist recently revealed the latest trends in her much-anticipated 2017 trend report report.

So who is Mary Meeker?

Mary Meeker is a partner at the venture capital firm called Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byer, one of the most powerful tech industry financing companies in Silicon Valley.

Many consider Meeker to be a guru in the tech sector, and she typically ranks as one of the most influential women in the world.

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byer placed early bets on companies like America Online, Amazon and Compaq. More recently Meeker guided it to make investments in Airbnb, Slack, and Spotify.

Here are the key takeaways from her 355 page report:

Smartphone growth is slowing globally.

• Total shipments of smartphones for 2016 grew just 3%, compared to a 10% growth rate a year earlier.

Digital growth in China is going strong.

• The amount of time that people in China spent on the Internet grew 30% in 2016, compared to 2015. Users there are logging more than 2.5 billion hours a day, according to the report. The number of Internet users increased 12% for the year, compared to 11% a year earlier.

Gaming is on.

• China is also the number one place globally for online gaming revenues, with software makers hauling in $25 billion in revenue there in 2016.

The ad game is changing. 

• Internet advertising is expected to outpace TV ads in the next six months, with Google and Facebook hauling in the most advertising revenue. Internet advertisers are expected to spend more than $200 billion by the end of the year.

What do Mary Meeker’s insights mean for you?

• Globally, we may be reaching a saturation point for smartphones, but Internet user growth is still strong, particularly in China.
• China is the number one spot globally for online gaming.
• Internet advertising is set to surpass TV advertising in the next six months.

The post Tech Is Still Killing It: Investment Guru Talks 2017 Trends appeared first on Stash Learn.

Chi-Hua is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Goodwater Capital. He spoke with us about venture capital (VC), his personal money habits, and how his parents shaped his financial outlook.

“I was very fortunate early on in my career to have the opportunity to meet and invest in a little company called the Facebook when it was six employees and just a few hundred thousand registered users,” he said.

Facebook was one of the first companies in which he invested at the beginning of his career, when he was at a VC firm called Accel Ventures. (Raise your hand if you wish you had invested in the Facebook in the early 2000s!)

“Over a 14 year venture career now, I’ve had the chance to invest at pretty early stages in companies like Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, Waze, and Chegg – which is a textbook rental company. And also countless others which were not as successful, but from which I really learned a lot.”

Lessons for success

We wanted to figure out some of the reasons behind Chi-Hua’s success today. We asked him the number one thing his family taught him about money that he still uses today.

“My parents taught me two principles that have really guided how I see the world,” he said. “The first is frugality and the second is generosity.”

The way to look at money is not as a possession, but as something you’re responsible for stewarding effectively.

He told me about his father’s journey as an immigrant to this country, and the family’s station wagon that his father took great care of and drove to work every day for 30 years.

“They were so frugal, saving every penny so they could invest it in us, their four children […] and really prepare us for the future,” he said. “At the same time, they were incredibly generous. Whenever there was anybody in their community […] in need, they didn’t hesitate to help that person out, with money or with resources.”  

He went on to say that he views money as more than just currency, but also as an effective tool of support and care within a community.

“And I really learned from them, the way to look at money is not as a possession, but as something that you’re responsible for stewarding effectively for the benefit and the care of the people who are in your community, […]. And those two principles of frugality and generosity—are ones that, not only do I apply in my personal life, but I think can be applied very broadly into work, community, and all the interactions that you have with others.”

Looking to the future

When you think of a venture capitalist, qualities like intelligence, quick-thinking, and pragmatic analysis probably come to mind. Numbers! Bottom-line! Growth-potential! But Chi-Hua Chien has brought frugality and generosity to the venture capital world and to his personal relationship with money and the world.

In closing, we asked Chi-Hua what he hopes to teach his daughter about money.

“I’d love to teach my daughter the same thing that my parents taught me, which is generosity. The resources that we have are not our own. They are resources that we have been entrusted with, to be good stewards of, in service of others, in service of our community, in service of the people around us, in service of those who have less.”

And if Chi-Hua’s career is any indication, a mix of generosity and action can take you a long way.

The post Money Advice from a Venture Capitalist: Be Generous appeared first on Stash Learn.

If you do, congrats! You are up on the startup lingo. If you’re not in the startup and corporate world, you may not be as familiar. But we’re here to help.

Venture capital (or VC) is financing that investors provide to entrepreneurs or small businesses that they believe have high growth potential. If you’re familiar with a little company called Facebook, you should know that venture capitalists were behind the growth of that company. Facebook received several rounds of funding to help it grow. But why does a company like Facebook need VC funding? Because in order for Facebook to become Facebook, they need to put money towards marketing, acquisition, hiring new talented employees, and using advanced technologies.

There are several types of investors

Angel investors and venture capitalists are two types of investors that are common in the startup ecosystem.

An angel investor is typically a high net worth individual that is using their own funds to invest. This type of investor tends to be involved in the early stages of a company. Why? Because that’s when it’s cheap! An angel investor can invest a few hundred thousand dollars in a company, before it receives millions of dollars from venture capital firms.

An angel investor is typically a high net worth individual that is using their own funds to invest.

A venture capitalist works at a Venture Capital firm and uses a firm’s funds to invest in a company. Depending on their firm, they may be involved at any stage of a company’s funding. What matters most for them is that they want to see promising growth before investing.

Venture capitalists and angel investors are also investing in entire industries. For example, when a Venture Capitalist invested in Facebook in its early stages, they were also investing in the social media industry and its future growth. Facebook is a giant in the social media industry, but its relevance is also dependent on the growth of the social media industry as a whole. Venture Capitalists focus not just on the strength of the individual company they are investing in, but also the strength of the industry — and the role that the company will have in that industry.

Knowledge DROP

Here are some whimsical industry terms to know, and these are 100% legit:

The post Getting a Jump Start on Startup Funding: An Intro to Venture Capital appeared first on Stash Learn.

In simple terms, cloud computing is a way of storing, accessing, and syncing data and software through the internet instead of your local computer hard drive. The ‘cloud’ is actually a global network of servers. To say those servers host massive amounts of data is an understatement.

Through web-based tools and applications, information is accessible anytime from any device with internet access and can be shared with others as you choose. Have a Gmail account? Your web-based email system is in the cloud. Share business documents with colleagues via Dropbox or Google Docs? That’s the cloud.

According to a 2016 study, the big data and business analytics industry is expected to grow 56% and become a $203 billion market by 2020.

Backup your phone’s photos and videos? Stored in the cloud. Netflix? You guessed it – they host their video content on Amazon Web Services, aka the cloud.

The cloud takes shape

The cloud isn’t only about data storage. Cloud-based applications have transformed the way we do business. Remember the days when email chains included twenty different versions of the same document, all at various stages in the editing process? As part of a whole suite of cloud-based applications, Google Docs allows users to collaborate and work simultaneously, showing real-time updates from anywhere in the world.

The cloud isn’t only about data storage. Cloud-based applications have transformed the way we do business.

Businesses that leverage big data use the cloud to capture, organize, and analyze massive data sets, something that was not possible before the cloud. According to a 2016 study, the big data and business analytics industry is expected to grow 56% and become a $203 billion market by 2020. In 2016, the banking industry led the way, investing almost $17 billion in software for risk management and fraud prevention.

Salesforce, Netflix, and Facebook don’t offer cloud services, but they rely on the cloud to provide their service to you

It takes more than just computer software companies to make the cloud possible. Sure, there are the pure play cloud computing companies that offer direct services such as network hardware and software, internet marketing and services, IT support, communications equipment, storage, and peripherals.

But there’s also non-pure players, like Salesforce, Netflix, and Facebook. They don’t offer cloud services, but they rely on the cloud to provide their service to you.

The technology behind cloud computing was first developed in the 1950s, but what we have come to know as ‘the cloud’ didn’t take shape until the turn of the 21st century when Salesforce stopped selling its software on disc and started providing their applications via the web.

If you think the best is yet to come with cloud technology, then consider an investment in an ETF on Stash that’s all about the cloud.

What’s inside On Cloud 9?

This investment (Ticker: SKYY) includes cloud computing companies – both pure play and non-pure play alike. Remember, pure play means the company actively supports and forms the cloud, and non-pure play companies utilize the cloud to provide their service.

• Tech hardware companies like Netapp and Hewlett Packard that create the systems and the equipment
• Software masters like Microsoft, Oracle, and Adobe
• Industry giants like Amazon and Apple that provide cloud storage data centers
• Companies like Google that provide industry-leading cloud-based applications
• And yes, even social media giants like Facebook and providers like Netflix who rely on the cloud to enable your binge-watching marathons.

At the time of this post, On Cloud 9 includes 33 companies. On Cloud 9 is ‘The First Trust ISE Cloud Computing Index Fund’ (SKYY) and has a 0.60% expense ratio.

Is the sky the limit?

What’s next in the world of cloud computing? More mobile capabilities, wearable technology, machine learning and AI (artificial intelligence). The Internet of Things (IoT), where machines connect to other machines and sensors, gathering data and leveraging it thanks to cloud computing, will one day revolutionize everything from smart refrigerators to smart stethoscopes to smart roads, bridges, and cars.

The cloud has the potential to touch almost everything we do – and companies of all sizes, including those that are still only an idea, will use the cloud to grow bigger, faster, and more innovative.

If you think that we’re just getting started, consider an investment in On Cloud 9.

The post Investment Profile: On Cloud Nine appeared first on Stash Learn.