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[ad_1] Buoyed by the volume of mortgage originations in 2020, 12 title companies made the Inc. 5000 list this year. Like all the companies on the list, those in title dealt with the special challenges of pandemic conditions and found a way to grow despite those. Priority Title & Escrow — a 15-year-old company — outranked them all, notching 617% growth to land No. 793 on the list. Inc. 5000 Coverage | Housing Verticals Growth Mortgage Real Estate Tech & Solutions Joe LaMontagne, Priority’s CEO, says the company focused on growth in 2019 and streamlined its customer onboarding process to be able to handle more volume. It had also ramped up staff. When the pandemic hit in March 2020 and mortgage rates went through the floor, Priority Title was ready to handle the massive spike in business. This content is exclusively for HW+ members. Start an HW+ Membership now for less than $1 a day. Your HW+ Membership includes: Unlimited access to HW+ articles and analysis Exclusive access to the HW+ Slack community and virtual events HousingWire Magazine delivered to your home or office Become a member today Already a member? log in The post Here’s how Priority Title & Escrow made the Inc. 5000 list appeared first on HousingWire. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] The post 11 Trends Reshaping Investing: Too Much Hype or Not Enough? appeared first on Millennial Money. A lot has changed since I started investing in 2010. And the rate of change is only accelerating.  Back then there was no Robinhood, no Ether, no decentralized finance, and no Cathie Wood. Investing was boring, which probably saved me. I bought a few stocks I liked and stashed the rest of my money in VTSAX (Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund). If instead, I were starting to invest today, it would be harder to stay disciplined amidst all the noise. There’s a ton of hype and greed in the market now. This isn’t a bad thing. It’s just that the pandemic and everyone living on their phones has made it tough to decipher a good investment. I spend an unnecessarily large amount of time reading about investing. Between press releases, the WSJ, Value Investor Insight, Reddit, and more… I sift through an immense amount of information. I also get asked a ton of questions like, “What do you think about [insert investment trend of the day]?” I usually don’t answer those emails. It’s not because I don’t have the time—it’s because writing the same thing over and over gets old. I apologize if you’ve ever asked and I left you hanging. So in this post, I’m going to share my thoughts on 11 trends I see in the investing world: some that interest me and others that don’t. All are relevant and I encourage you to dig deeper if they interest you. I’ll also share whether I think something has too much hype… or not enough. 11 Trends Reshaping Investing DeFi NFTs ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) Electric Vehicle Sector Bitcoin Ethereum Other cryptocurrencies Fintech Sports Cards & Collectibles Domains Sustainable Investing 1. DeFi  DeFi stands for “decentralized finance.” The idea is that the blockchain, as a self-regulating system, can facilitate financial transactions through “smart contracts” more efficiently and cost-effectively than traditional financial institutions. It eliminates the middleman and democratizes payments, lending, borrowing, and trading. A simple use case is taking out a loan without needing to work with a bank. Both parties simply set up a contract and agree to the terms which are then facilitated through the blockchain. DeFi is a true disruptor, but it’ll take 3-5 years for widespread adoption. The public needs more education and time to get comfortable with the idea, not to mention really simple, easy apps for consumers to use. I see already well-known payment services like Square, PayPal, and Intuit’s Quickbooks potentially dominating in this space. Traditional banks will slowly lose market share, but won’t go down without a fight… and a ton of acquisitions. Watch DeFi: The Future of Finance DEFI – The Future Of Finance Explained Too Much Hype or Not Enough? Not Enough Hype 2. NFTs  You’ve likely heard a ton about NFTs (or “non fungible tokens”) in 2021. At the very least, you’ve seen a bunch of people on Twitter change their profile to some pixelated image and wondered why. The NFT space isn’t new, but its popularity exploded with the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which you can use to buy these digital assets. If you want to go exploring, check out Opensea, the world’s largest NFT marketplace. Cryptopunks are going for over $100K+. Bored Ape Yacht club NFTs—a pseudo online social club working to expand offline—go for $20K+. NBA Top Shots had their moment, but the hype faded pretty quickly. Gary V made millions on a bunch of ridiculously simple drawings. Beeple’s work is actually great in my opinion, but after selling his piece as a jpeg for $69 million in a Christie’s auction, even he doesn’t really know what’s going on. There are a lot of crypto gains sloshing around out there and people want to buy stuff with them. I believe NFTs are here to stay and digital art does make it possible for more artists to make a living through their fanbases. I toyed with the idea of buying a Tycho NFT simply because I appreciate his work and want to support him. But it blew through my price range. NFTs will have their moment, but demand will fizzle quickly for most offerings. Even if I’m wrong… it’ll be entertaining to watch. Too Much Hype or Not Enough? Too Much Hype 3. ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) The ARK Innovation ETF is the brainchild of Cathie Wood, who has a quasi-religious belief in disruptive innovation. She’s done a masterful job putting out tons of content and videos on her thesis. Still, something doesn’t feel right to me.  ARKK blew up in 2020 with 150%+ gains largely due to Tesla and Zoom stock exploding, but the fund has suffered in 2021. While Cathie Wood could easily make any marketer-of-the-year shortlist, I don’t see how it’s worth paying an expense ratio of 0.75% for a fund that holds a small handful of stocks you could just invest in on your own. If you haven’t watched her discussion with Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey on cryptocurrency, it’s worth watching. Yet, but Wood’s thesis feels more like gambling than investing to me. If you’re interested in some of Wood’s investments, you’re better off just investing in them directly. See Tesla, Square, Roku, Coinbase, and the rest of the list here. Of note, the perennially controversial Michael Burry (of The Big Short and betting against the housing market fame) shorted ARKK and Cathie has her fair share of critics.  Check out this well-reasoned Twitter thread on why ARKK might not be all it’s cracked up to be: Dear Cathie, I was surprised at the indignity of seeing a high-profile investor short your largest product, so sought to determine why. Examining the $ARKK June 30 Factsheet, it appears devoid of what some investors refer to as “fundamental data.” Important? Let’s see…1/ pic.twitter.com/4JwNEBvygd — Christopher Bloomstran (@ChrisBloomstran) August 18, 2021 Too Much Hype or Not Enough? Too Much Hype 4. Electric

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[ad_1] Congratulations to all of the entrepreneurs, founders and executives who have survived the onslaught of phone calls, emails and DMs from first-year private equity associates (yeah… we’re looking at you Summit Partners….). But hey, growth equity firms and potential acquirers blowing up your cell phone is certainly not the worst thing in the world.  The companies recognized in the 2021 Inc. 5000 list are nothing short of exceptional. They put up unfathomable year-over-year growth metrics in a year like no other. Yes, 2020 gave certain sectors a tail-wind but nonetheless these companies all had to manage through uncertainty while growing at breakneck speeds. We should all applaud the ingenuity and courage it takes to achieve these types of outcomes.  Inc. 5000 Coverage | Housing Verticals Title Mortgage Real Estate Tech & Solutions Housing Sector Representation The housing sector has been represented in Inc. rankings for many years. In 2016, Brad Sullivan’s Mortgage Financial Services ruled the roost in housing with a rank of 733. Griffin Funding was the fastest housing sector grower in 2017. Total Expert took the crown in 2018.  Real estate broker Amherst Madison Treasure Valley was the fastest grower in 2019. And Nationwide Mortgage Bankers posted an insane average three-year growth rate of 16,396% in 2020.  And while housing sector firms have graced the Inc. 5000 since HousingWire’s earliest days (check out the HW’s 2008 Inc. coverage), this year is different. Low rates, demographics and the great fintech acceleration have all combined forces to give the housing sector an amazing tailwind. Mortgage Bankers Association data reports that total mortgage origination volume in 2019 came in at $2.25 trillion. 2020 total volume for refinances and purchase mortgages totaled $3.83 trillion – 70% year-over-year origination volume growth.  So yeah, a 70 mph tailwind should make any business operator grateful. And that tailwind, combined with amazing entrepreneurial execution, propelled 180 companies from the residential housing sector onto this year’s list of the fastest growing companies in America.  But riding the sector wave isn’t enough to get you to the upper echelons of this year’s Inc 5000 list. Housing sector firms averaged a three year average growth rate of 453% in this year’s list. These 180 firms grabbed market share, created new business models and recruited talent without ever looking back. And astronomical outliers like OJO Labs (6767% growth) , Big Block Realty (6271% growth) and Sales Boomerang (3882% growth) set a whole new precedent for ambitious entrepreneurs.  Many of the companies we interviewed for this coverage cited their team members as a strategic part of their growth.  William Lyons, president and CEO of Griffin Funding (170% growth), said, “We focus on being talent driven and team first. Human capital is our No. 1 asset next to our loyal client base. Some mortgage companies get stuck in the trap of focusing on growth first and talent second. If you can focus on talent first, then the growth will be more natural and less forced. We also took down some large forward commitments early on at the beginning of the pandemic when everyone else was pulling back and uncertain. That certainty gave the team confidence to perform and it built the momentum we needed to put us on the Inc. 5000 map.” Lending Heights ( 592% growth) President Jason Cecco said his focus was on “empowering our team members to thrive, which leads to the best customer experience.”  Aaron Strawn, senior loan officer at Ruoff Mortgage (294% growth) pointed to his company’s leadership. “We just have leadership that truly means and does what they say. Their primary focus is and always will be the customer experience. They are constantly looking for ways to improve that experience and sparing no expense to make the process as seamless as possible.” The Analysis HousingWire’s analysis of the 2021 Inc. 5000 winners took a close look at all recognized companies in the single-family housing sector with a focus on mortgage and real estate sales markets. To qualify for Inc.’s ranking program, a business must be privately held and based in the U.S., had to have generated at least $100,000 in annual revenue in 2017, and meet a minimum revenue threshold of $2 million in 2020. This year housing sector companies appeared in the following categories as presented by Inc.: Business Products & Services, Security, Financial Services, Insurance, IT Management, IT Services, IT Systems Dev, Software and Real Estate.  HousingWire segmented the recognized companies into four primary categories: Mortgage Lenders & Brokers: 71 companies averaging 433% 3-year revenue growth rate Real Estate Brokerages & Alternative Models: 69 companies averaging 326% 3-year revenue growth rate Technology & Solutions: 28 companies averaging 926% 3-year revenue growth rate Title: 12 companies averaging 199% 3-year revenue growth rate Within the mortgage category, it’s notable that only one Top 15 HMDA lender – CrossCountry Mortgage – ranked amongst the fastest growing companies in the country. Several of the nations top real estate brokerages as ranked by RealTrends graced Inc.’s list including United Real Estate Group, Realty One Group Affiliates and multiple eXp Realty teams.  HousingWire’s analysis and summarization of Inc. 5000 winners is presented in table format below and is available for excel or CSV download for HW+ Members. The following table presents all 180 companies recognized by Inc. Magazine in this year’s ranking of the 5000 fastest growing companies. The data table includes Inc. ranking, growth rates, housing vertical categorization, and links to relevant awards, rankings, press mentions and articles. This definitive dataset presents the fastest growers in housing. The table below represents the fastest growing companies in the housing sector: The Inc. 5000 ranks America’s top private companies by median growth, total revenue and jobs added. To qualify, companies must have generated revenue by March 31, 2017 and made at least $100,000 in revenue that year, have a minimum revenue threshold of $2 million in 2020 and be privately held, based in the U.S. and independently owned. Companies submit their revenue figures, and Inc. asks for verification for 2017 and

[ad_1] The post 3 Cheap Electric Vehicle Stocks With Long-Range Growth appeared first on Millennial Money. In the before times, releasing a new paint color was about as innovative as the big automakers got. Change came slowly. But 2020 was easily the most disruptive time in the auto industry since the days of the Model T: It was the year the United States committed to electric vehicles. Last year, shares of Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) skyrocketed more than 700% as the company became the seventh-largest in the country. Tesla now has a market capitalization 9 times bigger than General Motors (NYSE: GM). Inspired by Tesla’s success in the market, smaller electric vehicle companies rushed to go public, and the market was flooded with initial public offerings (IPOs) or special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) mergers for EV stocks Fisker (NYSE: FSR), Xpeng (NYSE: XPEV), QuantumScape (NYSE: QS), Canoo (Nasdaq: GOEV), and Hyliion (NYSE: HYLN).  But it wasn’t just start-ups fighting to make a splash in the space. Last year, CEOs from GM, Volkswagen Group (NYSE: VWAGY), and Ford (NYSE: F) began to double down in their pursuit of EV market share — they worried that Tesla was finally big enough to threaten the entrenched technology of internal combustion engines. Here’s why EV stocks are out of juice Rarely will you see so many forces align as you did last year. So naturally, you’d expect EV stocks to continue their amazing run that started last year … and you’d be mostly wrong.  In fact, shares of every electric vehicle IPO and SPAC I just mentioned have fallen this year. Tesla, too. To explain why EV stocks are no longer accelerating, I want to share a framework called the Gartner Hype Cycle.  Most new technologies follow this path: Innovation trigger: An early market leader emerges. Expectation peak: Many companies enter the market with hopes of winning market share. Disillusionment trough: Weaker competitors flame out, and investor interest wanes. Slope of enlightenment: Industry winners begin to emerge as the technology is increasingly accepted. Plateau of productivity: Mainstream adoption takes off and the industry begins to consolidate.    Now, in 2021, we’re seeing a transition from the expectation peak — when nearly everyone with a half-baked EV plan could receive funding — to the disillusionment trough.   However, as the framework shows, there are still significant gains to be made from the shift to electric vehicles as we enter the slope of enlightenment.  Because there’s such long-term upside in the auto industry as a whole, you don’t have to invest in a risky electric vehicle IPO today to benefit from the coming sea change in technology. Instead, you can consider these three value-oriented companies that are just as likely to benefit from the growth in electric vehicles. Magna could land the crown jewel of electric vehicles Magna International Inc. (NYSE:MGA) Price: $0 (as of close Aug 19, 2021) Market Cap: 23,323,914,687 document.addEventListener(“DOMContentLoaded”, function(event) { Highcharts.stockChart(“stockChart-273d83dd0ee11c4b2a2748d30b11c56e”,{rangeSelector:{selected:1},title:{text:”Magna International Inc. (NYSE:MGA)Closing Stock Price”},subtitle: {text: “30-Day Historical Data”},navigator: { enabled: false },scrollbar: { enabled: false },credits: { enabled: false },xAxis: { type: “datetime”, labels: { formatter: function() { return Highcharts.dateFormat(“%m %d, %Y”, this.value); }}},colors: [“#118b4e”],rangeSelector : { enabled: false },series:[{name:”NYSE:MGA”,data:[[1626753600000,86.03],[1626840000000,87.22],[1626926400000,84.97],[1627012800000,80.93],[1627272000000,81.73],[1627358400000,81.03],[1627444800000,81.95],[1627531200000,83.68],[1627617600000,83.83],[1627876800000,84.35],[1627963200000,84.7],[1628049600000,82.5],[1628136000000,84.4],[1628222400000,83.66],[1628481600000,84.06],[1628568000000,86.43],[1628654400000,86.74],[1628740800000,86.43],[1628827200000,85.94],[1629086400000,85.45],[1629172800000,82.68],[1629259200000,82.29],[1629345600000,77.52],],tooltip:{valueDecimals:2,xDateFormat: “%A, %B %e, %Y”}}]}); }); Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) “Project Titan” has been a long-running open secret in tech circles. Here’s what we know: Apple is working with more than 1,000 experts to design an electric vehicle.  A report earlier this year said a joint venture between LG and Magna International (NYSE: MGA) could provide the electric powertrain. Apple wins are always game-changing for suppliers, but it’s likely Magna will play a bigger role — as both a manufacturer and assembler. Traditionally, automakers have used a soup-to-nuts approach, meaning that they design, manufacture, and assemble all components of their vehicles.  Increasingly, many EV makers like Fisker are only involved in designing the product … and Apple is well-versed in the design-only approach, using manufacturers like China’s Foxconn for iPhone and iPad assembly and producers like TSMC to make chips.  Even if Magna doesn’t win the Apple deal, it should still benefit from the shift from internal combustion engines to EV. The company has a long record of partnering with Ford and General Motors both as an assembly partner and a component manufacturer, so the rising tide of EV vehicle sales should lift Magna’s boat, too.  What’s more, with capital drying up, many other EV makers will likely take a design-only approach and outsource manufacturing to companies like Magna that have scale and a history of success. As an example, Magna recently signed a deal with Fisker to assemble the company’s Ocean SUV. Despite shares rallying nearly 58% in the past year, shares of Magna are still inexpensive, trading for 12.7 times forward earnings versus 22.3 times for the greater S&P 500. Even better, shares currently pay a 2% dividend yield, so you actually get paid to invest in the company. General Motors finally understands the importance of EVs General Motors (NYSE:GM) Price: $0 (as of close Aug 19, 2021) Market Cap: 71,250,604,692 document.addEventListener(“DOMContentLoaded”, function(event) { Highcharts.stockChart(“stockChart-b72a75c07e43cb2c15a4bdd104d61d6d”,{rangeSelector:{selected:1},title:{text:”General Motors (NYSE:GM)Closing Stock Price”},subtitle: {text: “30-Day Historical Data”},navigator: { enabled: false },scrollbar: { enabled: false },credits: { enabled: false },xAxis: { type: “datetime”, labels: { formatter: function() { return Highcharts.dateFormat(“%m %d, %Y”, this.value); }}},colors: [“#118b4e”],rangeSelector : { enabled: false },series:[{name:”NYSE:GM”,data:[[1626753600000,56.15],[1626840000000,57.05],[1626926400000,55.64],[1627012800000,54.94],[1627272000000,55.77],[1627358400000,55],[1627444800000,55.49],[1627531200000,57.28],[1627617600000,56.84],[1627876800000,57.03],[1627963200000,57.88],[1628049600000,52.72],[1628136000000,54.44],[1628222400000,55.05],[1628481600000,53.95],[1628568000000,54.26],[1628654400000,54.27],[1628740800000,54.62],[1628827200000,53.65],[1629086400000,52.95],[1629172800000,50.47],[1629259200000,50.84],[1629345600000,49.08],],tooltip:{valueDecimals:2,xDateFormat: “%A, %B %e, %Y”}}]}); }); Better late than never for General Motors. The company’s earlier efforts in EVs have been ineffective at best, with the Chevy Volt hybrid being discontinued and the fully electric Chevy Bolt failing to move the needle in a significant way. (The most recent news about Bolt is that GM has issued two recalls due to fire risk from the EV batteries.)   Even as late as last year, GM was committed to internal combustion engines, joining the Trump administration in a lawsuit against California for its fuel economy standards. It later dropped out of the suit as President Biden was elected and as Tesla and EV stocks soared. Although you could see

[ad_1] “How do you look at what you already have in your freezer/pantry and figure out what meals you should make. I have many items in my pantry and freezer but it’s a bit overwhelming, so I feel like I never use those items but could be saving money if I did use them.” I got this great question in my inbox recently. I’ve been reverse meal-planning for a number of years, so it just sort of happens pretty naturally and without a lot of effort. But this questioon challenged me to really dig into what my thought-processes are for looking at ingredients I have on hand and coming up with meal ideas. As I was mulling over this, I realized that I do I have a very simple three-step system I use. So, in this post, let me break down my ABC’s of Reverse Meal-Planning. The ABC’s of Reverse Meal Planning First off, if you are new to Reverse Meal-Planning, it’s just a fancy name for planning your meals based upon what you already have on hand and what’s on sale at the store. Many people think of meal-planning as thinking of what sounds good or what recipes you like, writing down the ingredients you need to make those recipes, and then buying those items at the store. While this is definitely an effective way to menu-plan, it’s not the most cost efficient. Instead, I practice the Buy Ahead Principle and Reverse Meal-Planning — which means I buy extra items I know we will use when they are at their lowest prices and then plan our meals based around those items. This means that what I buy at the grocery store isn’t all just for meals that week — it’s often extra items (that are on a rock bottom sale!) for us to use in the weeks (or even months!) to come. This means that we always have a variety of items on hand to work from. 1. Assess What You Have You have to know what you have in order to be able to use what you have! Organize it by like items — meats together, bread together, veggies together, snacks together. This way, you can see at a glance what you have. 2. Break the Rules Guess what? When it comes to your family’s menu, you can break the “rules”. Some people would think that our meals are weird or don’t go together… but who decides what is weird or what goes together. There aren’t hard and fast rules on this stuff. So relax and have fun experimenting! 3. Create New Recipes Speaking of experimenting: one of my favorite ways to get creative in the kitchen is to concoct recipes from what we already have on hand or to come up with substitutions instead of making a trip to the store! [ad_2] Source link

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