Weekly Briefings

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.

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

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!

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.

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!

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.”

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.

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.

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…