Coinbase's dizzying week before S&P 500 debut: What happened?
Coinbase (COIN) started the week announcing its upcoming debut on the S&P 500 (^GSPC), but it quickly soured after news of a major cybersecurity breach and an ongoing US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation.
Mark Palmer, Benchmark Company managing director and senior research analyst of fintech and digital assets, joins Asking for a Trend to explain what happened.
To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Asking for a Trend here.
We're gonna take a look here at shares of Coinbase this week as it began with the platform reaching a major milestone announcing its addition to the S&P 500.
But then things took a turn for the worse yesterday when the company disclosed a significant cybersecurity breach, confirmed an ongoing SEC investigation requiring regarding its past user metrics.
Joining us now to break it all down.
The latest is what he calls coins, uh, no good.
Bad day.
That would be Mark Palmer, benchmark company managing director, senior research analyst at FinTech and digital assets.
Uh, Mark, it's good to see you.
So there is a lot to break down here, Mark, all right, so they're added to the SPX.
That's it.
That's a big achievement.
It's a big milestone, but then, Mark, we have this headline Ma hack.
Maybe start there with the hack.
I mean, your takeaways from that, Mark, how concerned should investors be about that?
Yes, uh, well, first of all, thanks very much for having me on.
You know, the, the situation with Coinbase is really something of a one-off.
You know what we're talking about are consultants that were hired by the company for customer service abroad, and uh the cyber hackers in this case, uh, got a hold of these people and bribed them to provide them with access to Coinbase's platform.
At which point they were able to access a lot of different materials about customers' backgrounds, but importantly, none of the log information, none of the private keys associated with crypto, uh, and, um, you know, none of the um access to customer wallets.
So as a consequence of this, um, you know, there were no actual uh.
You know, big amounts of money that were lifted off the platform as you typically will see with some of these hacking incidents.
With that said, um, you know, this is, it's always a concern when an exchange has a breach, but management moved quickly.
They came out with all of the information about what had happened as as fully as they could, and they had a remediation plan in place, which would ultimately help to Compensate any of those who are impacted by this, you know, to the tune of between $180 and $400 million.
So it's a bizarre story, but it really didn't have anything to do with the various cybersecurity protection measures that the company has in place.
This was really more of the real world type of incident that we're talking about here.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
4 minutes ago
- Forbes
Why We're Dodging These 3 Gold CEFs (Even With Gold Soaring)
A lump of gold on a stone floor getty Here's a surprise from a die-hard closed-end fund (CEF) fan like me: Sometimes CEFs aren't your best bet. I'll admit, that's tough for me to say—especially when the average CEF yields a historically high 9.1%. (CEF yields are usually around 8.5%). That high yield partly reflects the fact that many CEFs are trading at steep discounts to their net asset value (NAV). Translation: The fund is trading for less than what its underlying portfolio is worth. That, in turn, has resulted in lower prices among some CEFs, along with higher yields (as yields and prices move in opposite directions). All of this simply means that CEFs are generally out of favor right now, which is an opportunity for us. But not every CEF is ripe for buying. We especially want to avoid the three top performers among CEFs with market caps over $200 million: ASA Gold and Precious Metals (ASA), the Sprott Physical Gold Trust (PHYS) and the Sprott Physical Gold and Silver Trust (CEF). The fact that these funds have booked strong runs this year shouldn't come as a surprise: They're all gold funds, and gold has taken off due to rising economic uncertainty (the usual fuel for the yellow metal). Even so, as you can see, there are some clear differences in performance here, and those are worth unpacking. Gold Funds Ycharts Above we see that the Sprott Physical Gold and Silver Trust—with the somewhat confusing 'CEF' ticker, not to be confused with CEFs in general (in purple)—and PHYS (in blue) have similar returns to the benchmark SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) ETF (in green), at around 25%. Then there's ASA (in orange), which has more than doubled even the best of these three other funds. There is some logic at work here. For starters, PHYS and GLD really should track each other, since they both devote almost 100% of their portfolios to physical gold (both own gold bars that are locked up in vaults), and both have similar expense ratios (0.4% for GLD, 0.41% for PHYS). The lower performance of 'CEF' is also not surprising, given that the fund also holds silver, and the 'poor man's gold' hasn't done as well as its yellow counterpart this year. ASA, however, is the clear outperformer. That's thanks in part to its ownership of several gold-mining stocks. Its largest position, G Mining Ventures Inc., a Canadian firm that explores for precious metals, has nearly doubled year to date. ASA's fast short-term gain is, of course, great, but it's unlikely to last. Here's why. Note that, if we go back to 2010, the year the last of these funds, PHYS, launched, we see that GLD (again in green) outran all three of the CEFs. This shows that CEFs were poor options in the case of gold. Moreover, ASA (again in orange) was actually the worst performer, returning just 53% over 15 years, and being in the red for most of that time. ASA Underperforms Ycharts In terms of key takeaways, there are a few here. First, if you want to hold gold, this is a rare case where an ETF, not a CEF, is the better choice. Second, gold is not a great play for income, given that the highest yielder among these funds is ASA, with a puny 0.2%. Third, gold itself is a poor play for the long term, no matter how you invest in it. To see why, all we need to do is splice the S&P 500's performance (in pink below) into that last chart. Gold Underperforms Ycharts It doesn't get much clearer than that! This, however, is where the good news ends for ETF investors. Because when it comes to investing in stocks (or pretty well any other asset class, for that matter), you're far better off with CEFs. Let's take a look at the Adams Diversified Equity Fund (ADX), a CEF we've held in my CEF Insider service since its earliest days: We bought ADX in July 2017, just a few months after CEF Insider's launch. Here's how the fund—current yield: 9% (and in orange below)—has done since, as compared to the S&P 500 index fund SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), in purple, with dividends reinvested: ADX Outperforms Ycharts This chart says it all: CEFs like ADX can crush the S&P 500 and pay us generously while doing so. Plus they give us access to top-notch management and upside-generating discounts to NAV, too. Those are strengths no index fund can match. Michael Foster is the Lead Research Analyst for Contrarian Outlook. For more great income ideas, click here for our latest report 'Indestructible Income: 5 Bargain Funds with Steady 10% Dividends.' Disclosure: none
Yahoo
9 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Will $50,000 Invested in Nvidia Stock Be Worth $1 Million in 10 Years?
Nvidia shares are up 850% since ChatGPT sparked the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but most Wall Street analysts still recommend buying the stock. The company is the market leader in AI accelerator chips, but its true strength lies in vertical integration that spans hardware and software products. Seven stocks in the S&P 500 generated such colossal returns in the last decade that they would have turned $50,000 into $1 million. 10 stocks we like better than Nvidia › Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) has been a cornerstone of the artificial intelligence (AI) trade for several years. Its share price has increased 850% since January 2023, a period that roughly coincides with the launch of ChatGPT. But Wall Street is still overwhelmingly bullish on the semiconductor company. Angelo Zino at CFRA Research thinks Nvidia "will be the most important company to our civilization over the next decade." More broadly, among 73 analysts following Nvidia, the median 12-month target price is $175 per share. That implies 25% upside from its current share price of $140. Could Nvidia stock turn $50,000 into $1 million over the next decade? Here are my thoughts. What sets Nvidia apart is vertical integration. The company has over 90% market share in data center graphics processing units (GPUs), chips that accelerate complex workloads such as artificial intelligence (AI). But the company supplements its GPUs with adjacent hardware like CPUs, interconnects, and networking equipment. Nvidia also develops software products. AI Enterprise is a suite of tools, code libraries, and pretrained models that streamline the development of AI applications for use cases like autonomous robots, conversational agents, and optimization systems. CrowdStrike uses those tools to power threat detection capabilities on its cybersecurity platform. Similarly, Omniverse is a software platform that supports 3D application development. It also serves as a simulation engine that lets engineers generate synthetic data for developing machine learning models. Amazon uses the Omniverse platform to optimize warehouse design and train fulfillment center robots. Nvidia frequently sets performance records at the MLPerf benchmarks, objective tests that evaluate AI systems on training and inference workloads. That is an important competitive advantage: Nvidia builds the best AI accelerators on the market. But vertical integration reinforces that advantage by letting the company design entire data center systems with the "lowest total cost of ownership," according to CEO Jensen Huang. Grand View Research says spending on AI hardware, software, and services will increase at 35.9% annually through 2030. Nvidia has a good shot at matching that growth rate. Indeed, Wall Street expects earnings to grow at 40% annually through the fiscal year ending January 2027. That makes the current valuation of 44 times earnings seem fair. Nvidia shares would need to increase 1,900% (20-fold) in the next decade to turn $50,000 into $1 million. Returns of that magnitude are theoretically possible in that time frame. In fact, seven stocks currently in S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) hit that mark in the last decade, as listed: Nvidia: +25,700% Advanced Micro Devices: +4,980% Axon Enterprise: +2,380% Texas Pacific Land: 2,110% Arista Networks: 1,950% Tesla: 1,920% Fair Isaac: 1,900% However, while 20-fold returns are theoretically possible, Nvidia has virtually no chance of hitting that mark in the next decade. The company is already worth $3.4 trillion, meaning its market value would hit $68 trillion if the stock increased 20 times. That seems highly unlikely when the entire S&P 500 is only worth $48 trillion today. Nevertheless, Nvidia is still a worthwhile investment. AI will likely be the most transformative technology in history, and the company is well positioned to benefit as demand for AI infrastructure increases. Potential catalysts include generative AI, autonomous vehicles, and humanoid robots. Also, Nvidia has a burgeoning software business that may evolve into a significant source of revenue as those catalysts take shape. Before you buy stock in Nvidia, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Nvidia wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $674,395!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $858,011!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 997% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 172% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 2, 2025 John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Trevor Jennewine has positions in Amazon, Arista Networks, Axon Enterprise, CrowdStrike, Nvidia, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Amazon, Arista Networks, Axon Enterprise, CrowdStrike, Nvidia, and Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends Fair Isaac. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Will $50,000 Invested in Nvidia Stock Be Worth $1 Million in 10 Years? was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Gizmodo
14 minutes ago
- Gizmodo
This Market Slimmest 10000mAh USB-C Power Bank Is Almost Free, Now Cheaper Than a Movie Ticket
This charger is super compact and costs almost nothing compared to other models just like it. Having a good power bank is essential if you're an on-the-go person but not all portable chargers are created equal. Most of them are bulky and heavy, so it's a hassle to carry them around in your bag or pocket. That's why the INIU power bank is a must-have accessory: This ridiculously thin 10000mAh power bank is the thinnest available at a mere 0.5 inches thin and slips into any pocket or bag perfectly without wasting any space. Amazon is now offering this great gadget at a low price of just $15, which is 27% lower than its regular $21 price. At this cost, it's nearly a theft. See at Amazon 2 USB-A And 1 USB-C ports The INIU portable charger features a massive 10000mAh capacity and it fills up an iPhone up to 3.6 times, a Samsung Galaxy up to 1.8 times and AirPods Pro a huge 13.2 times. This means your devices will be charged throughout the day or even longer wherever your journey takes you. The thin design of the power bank is perfect for the user who values mobility and the fact that it is incredibly light means it is easily transportable to wherever you go. This power bank contains a USB-C in and out port which is a feature found in under 5% of current power banks. This is made achievable by charging the power bank itself and also your devices, from one USB-C cable and without requiring separate cables and adapters. The device comes with 3A fast charging which is capable of charging an iPhone to 78% in just one hour or half the time compared to standard 2.1A chargers. INIU's in-house developed 15-Layer SmartProtect system regulates and monitors charging to prevent overcharging, overheating, and short circuits. With multi-layer protection, you can be confident that your devices are protected from battery harm when charging. Each purchase includes the power bank itself, a 1-foot USB-C to USB-A cable, travel pouch, user guide, and access to INIU's customer support. This tiny device is a great choice for any user looking for a thin, high-capacity, and safe power bank. Don't let this limited supply slip away as it might run out of stock quickly. See at Amazon
