Weekly Briefings

Best Weekend Reads & Wines: November 19, 2013

My goal here every week is simple: feed your intellect, your palette and your soul with tasty digital plates of info. My theory in life is that with today’s fire hose of information rushing past our lives, we miss a lot of the truly important knowledge nuggets and discoveries that make our lives truly richer.

So my friends…if we can provide you a few truly valuable pieces of knowledge, awareness and contextual understanding every week along with a little inspiration, a belly laugh or two and fine wine & food…our work here is truly blessed.

PS: We now have 15,000+ readers and have our own acronym—The BREW.

Best Weekend Reads & Wines: November 8, 2013

Key Takeaway: If you talk with ANY sophisticated web site developer they will tell you that with the scope of work required to meet the 2700 page mandates of the Healthcare.gov site, the site is a 5-7 year project. Just look at United & Continental Airlines merger of systems— it's STILL not working 100%. THEN the new healthcare system was required to interface with the ancient IRS system…individual state systems…insurance company systems…ALL on different operating systems and architectures.

Best Weekend Reads & Wines: November 1, 2013 0

Thanks for being a Best Weekend Reads & Wines subscriber…and welcome to the Shit Show!

Best Weekend Reads & Wines: October 24, 2013

For more than a decade I curated my weekly “Best Of” opinion and news columns for staff and friends. This weekly ritual was purely a by-product of me reading six newspapers a day (NY Times, Financial Times, USA Today, Wall St. Journal, Washington Post, LA Times), dozens of magazines a week and of course tons of blogs and content aggregation platforms (Flipboard etc.) on Sundays. Wine tasting comes AFTER golf of course…

Idea curation is a hobby…just like wine. Many friends and subscribers have recently asked me “What happened to your weekly compilation of great ideas and your tasty & cheap wine finds?” Well…sharing my favorite articles, favorite wine and restaurant discoveries is fun and I missed it.

Today we launch Best Weekend Reads & Wines…to feed your intellectual and gastronomic appetite!

NBT Week: The 6 Great MYTHS of Venture Capital

You would never hear this from a Sand Hill Road Venture Capitalist (VC), but the details are in and professional venture capital is mostly the exception, not the norm, as a funding source for startups.

In fact, it’s less than 1 percent. At NBT Equities Research we more often than not look for opportunity in the 99% of emerging growth companies initially funded by angel investors, founders and public venture capital via Alternative Public Offerings (APOs).

Why? Because again…if you look at actual results… more VC-backed new companies fail than succeed, and since 1999 the VC funds that have backed the lucky “1%” have barely broken even. Their investors would have earned 3X more return on their “venture” money by putting their VC fund investment into money market funds.

NBT Week: The New Age of DIY Capitalism is Here

Yesterday, September 23, a new $trillion age of self-directed accredited (and soon non-accredited investor) capital formation has dawned in America.  Today, for the first time in 80 years, private US companies can “directly solicit” accredited investors to purchase up to $1 million per year of their private company stock via “equity crowdfunding.”  Alternative Asset managers and financial sponsors can also advertise and raise money directly from accredited investors for hedge funds/oil drilling partnerships or private equity deals vs. brokers.

Deregulation of securities laws means Madison Avenue meets Wall Street and private “Angel” venture capital investing goes public with non-accredited households and oh shudder the thought: our all-knowing government finally has admitted that private citizens can evaluate early-stage investments by themselves…glory be!

NBT Week: The S.E.C FINALLY Approves General Advertising for Private Equity Offerings

Accredited investors beware...the SEC will now allow the evil marketplace and market forces to decide which companies get private investor money or not. For 80 years our government had prohibited “general solicitation” i.e., the communication of a private investment opportunity to an accredited investor without an “existing business relationship.”

Yes Virginia... The SEC has finally (1.5 years AFTER the change was mandated by the JOBS Act of 2012) amended Regulation D (“Reg D”) of Rule 506 of the Securities Act of 1933. Rule 506 is the primary exception to the requirement for a full SEC registration of securities offering (the process that is of course VERY time consuming, highly onerous and massively expensive for early stage companies to fulfill). The 506 exemption has allowed private placement memorandums that companies could use to privately solicit investments from accredited investors (individuals with $1 million net worth not including their residence, or $200K a year in individual income) where there was a “pre-existing business relationship.”

NBT Week: Let’s Have an Adult Conversation About Sponsored Research for 3000+ Uncovered & Invisible Public Companies in 2013

Chuck Jaffe, a very reasonable MarketWatch.com columnist with whom I have at least a 10 year working relationship, posted a reasonably negative column this week on our business of sponsored research for uncovered emerging growth companies…specifically Petrosonic (PSON). The gist of his article is his issue with the conflicts of interest with sponsored research…and generally why such a nice guy like me would sully himself in the world of emerging growth stocks and have the audacity to be paid for research by a public company.

So let’s talk about the business and necessity of sponsored research…and why I am VERY comfortable with this research model for the 3000+ public companies listed on the NYSE/Market/ Nasdaq and OTC markets with ZERO buy side or sell side equity analyst research coverage.

What To Do When One Of Our Portfolio Stocks Goes WILD

Well it’s been quite a month for the emerging growth stocks we cover at NBT Equities Research…

From initiation to high trades our last three additions to the buy list were up over 200%--in just a few weeks.

Company

Low

High

% Gains

Medient Studios, Inc. (MDNT)

.19

.80

+321%

Western Graphite Inc. (WSGP)

.60

1.94

+223%

Brazil Minerals, Inc. (BMIX)

.40

.77

+92%

Uranerz Energy Corp. (URZ)

1.00

1.41

+41%

Our favorite strategic resource play…this time uranium via Uranerz…moved 40%+ off the bottom of its trading range.

My point?

That IF you are fortunate enough to pulls the trigger on one of our sponsored research stocks and it rockets 100-200-300% higher out of the gate…

NBT Week: Next Big Thing Investor Newsletter Start Date JUNE 1…and Other Things

Next Big Thing Investor Newsletter Start Date JUNE 1…and Other Things

With everything going on in NBT Land…especially onboarding new portfolio clients for NBT Equities Research  & finishing my new book Next Big Thing Investing….we are pushing back launch of our new paid subscription newsletter Next Big Thing Investor to June 1.  All pre-launch orders received will start their one year subscriptions from June 1 to May 30 2014. Special Premiums will go out during the launch…and your FREE book is coming soon!