Author: Jordan

Most listed private-equity funds are trading at deep discounts to net asset value (NAV). These discounts imply scepticism from investors about whether the funds will be able to sell many of the holdings in their portfolios at the valuations at which they are currently carrying them – a concern driven by several years of limited exits. However, over the past 18 months, managers have started to monetise investments more successfully. Can a savvy investor grab any low-hanging fruit before discounts start to narrow?Before considering whether listed private-equity funds offer value at discounts, it is worth understanding the cyclical challenges that…

Read More

Let me paint the picture: You’re on a trip with your mom for the weekend, and on the day of departure, you wake up at 4 a.m. to read a text no one wants to receive from your airline: “We’re sorry that your flight is canceled.”There I was, at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare Chicago, trying to get back to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) with my mom after a weekend in the Windy City. A strong storm system had moved through the night before, and it appeared to still be causing issues in Georgia.AUGUSTA STONE/THE POINTS GUYI rubbed my tired…

Read More

Welcome to the world of Bilt 2.0, where it turns out most of the rumors about the new card portfolio were true — and there’s a lot to celebrate for those who are more than ready to start earning points on their mortgage payments.Starting with the really good news: You will now be able to earn 2 Bilt Points (TPG’s most valued currency, per our January 2026 valuations) per dollar spent on everyday spending if you hold the premium-tier Bilt Palladium Card (see rates and fees).This is huge news to me because of the top-tier transfer partners in the Bilt…

Read More

The ripple effects of geopolitical conflict are reshaping the plumbing of global trade finance, pushing some commodity traders out of the banking system and into the arms of stablecoins.That’s according to Luke Sully, CEO of trade finance-focused stablecoin issuer Haycen, who says the war involving Iran has heightened compliance fears among Western banks, triggering a fresh wave of “debanking” across commodity markets.“Since the war, banks are further retreating from certain commodity flows,” Sully told CoinDesk in an interview. “We spoke with some commodity traders who are getting debanked now,” he added.The $2 trillion marketThe concern centers on counterparty risk. Banks…

Read More

He may regret those words now — after his sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr. gambled $2.4 billion of the family’s fortune to buy bitcoin at its peak last year.As Forbes reports (2), it originally looked like their gamble would pay off, with a potential $1 billion return. Instead, the Trumps have lost more than $1 billion.Here’s why they were so ready to bet big on bitcoin, and where it all went wrong.Smitten by bitcoinBy the time Trump was reelected, Eric and Donald Trump Jr. had converted him into a crypto crusader. The family’s cryptocurrency investments had earned him millions.That…

Read More

Quick Take Waymo, a company operating self-driving cars, recently expanded its operations into more of the Bay Area, including an area of Lexington Hills that lies mostly in Santa Clara County but very slightly reaches into Santa Cruz County. However, don’t expect to see Waymos on local roads in the near future. Last week, the California Department of Motor Vehicles website showed that a small part of Santa Cruz County had been approved for driverless testing of Waymo vehicles, the self-driving cars operated by the Mountain View-based company.  Waymo has been offering driverless taxi rides to the public since 2020,…

Read More

Landlord mortgage interest tax relief in 2026-27Since April 2020, you’ve no longer been able to deduct any of your mortgage expenses from your rental income to reduce your tax bill.Instead, you now receive a tax credit, based on 20% of your mortgage interest payments.This is less generous than the previous system for higher-rate taxpayers, who effectively received 40% tax relief on mortgage payments.The current system was phased in between 2017 and 2020 and resulted in many landlords selling buy-to-let properties or moving their portfolios to company structures.Mortgage interest tax relief in 2026-27: an exampleAssuming a landlord takes in £950 per…

Read More

Some of the world’s most successful companies revved up their success in the least glamorous of places. Google and Amazon were both launched out of their founders’ garages, and Microsoft was born out of a motel in New Mexico.  While growing fintech company Esusu to be a billion-dollar success, its creators were even willing to sleep in a Denny’s to get their dream off the ground.  “326 investors said no to us on the first go-around, myself and Samir [Goel] had $100,000 in credit card debt, we’ve been kicked out of a Denny’s because we couldn’t afford a hotel room,”…

Read More