TOPLEY'S TOP 10

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1. South Korea Stocks Semis/Memory and Leverage…. -40% from Highs ..Still Above 200day

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2. Top South Korean policymakers apologise for single-stock leveraged ETFs

The introduction of single-stock leveraged exchange-traded funds has been blamed for intensifying a rout in the country’s stock market.

SEOUL – Top South Korean policymakers apologised on July 29 over the introduction of single-stock leveraged exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which have been blamed for intensifying a rout in the country’s stock market.

Finance Minister Koo Yun-cheol said he was sorry for introducing the product without careful consideration, responding to a lawmaker’s demand for an apology during a parliamentary session.

At another parliamentary session, the country’s top financial regulator made similar comments, after several lawmakers criticised the release of the funds for exacerbating a sell-off in South Korean equities in July.

“As the ultimate authority responsible for the financial markets, we feel sorry that we have fallen short in properly meeting the public’s expectations” over regulating the product, Lee Eog-weon, chairman of the Financial Services Commission, told the hearing.

The apologies came as the benchmark Kospi plummeted as much as 12.6 per cent on July 29, led by losses in South Korean chip stocks Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which together account for nearly half of the index’s market capitalisation.

The regulator’s approval of single-stock leveraged ETFs has come under fire as South Korean retail investors pumped money into the product, mostly tied to Samsung or SK Hynix, betting on no let-up in robust demand for artificial intelligence.

Shares of Samsung Electronics fell as much as 14 per cent on July 29 in Seoul trading. SK Hynix plunged as much as nearly 20 per cent, despite reporting record earnings. REUTERS

https://www.straitstimes.com/business/top-south-korean-policy-makers-apologise-for-single-stock-leveraged-etfs?ref=latest

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3. Intel INTC -40% from High ….Still Above 200day

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4. Roundhill DRAM ETF -33% One-Month

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5. Market Cap Losses in AI Related Tech Stocks

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6. Vanguard Value ETF VTV +18% vs. Vanguard Growth VUG +3% 2026

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7. International Dividend Payers DTH +12.5% vs. VUG Vanguard Growth +3% 2026

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8. Tech Sector Beats Earnings and Trades Down

Tech EPS beats. "Weird times for the Tech sector. On average (so far) this earnings season, a Tech stock that beats EPS estimates is underperforming the S&P 500 by 3.3% the day of/after reporting".

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9. Up in Smoke

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10. Venture Capital Only Funds 1% of American Business

The 99 Percent Funding Rule Every Founder Should Know Before Borrowing Money-INC.

Every funding approach has its purpose. The key is to find the approach that’s best for what you need.

BY TOBI OPEYEMI AMURE

Venture capital just had its best half-year on record, with more than $400 billion raised industry-wide. None of that money was going to you if you were a regular business, however. Only a quarter of one percent of American employers benefited, leaving the other 99 percent to take a different funding approach altogether.

If you’re among that 99 percent, this doesn’t mean your business is uninvestable. It just means you’re playing a different game with its own pros and cons. Every funding approach has its purpose. The key is to find the approach that’s best for what you need.

Here are some of the smart approaches businesses use to get funding.

Start with the money your customers already owe you

The cheapest capital is cash you can collect even sooner—not a loan. Most of it rests in the customer’s purse with a desire to pay early if there’s an incentive. However, before you seek such funding, find out what getting paid early actually costs.

EE How to Win Over Investors With a Strong Proof of Concept

If you offer a 5 percent discount for annual prepayment on a monthly contract, that works out to roughly a 10 percent discount over a full year. That’s close to what a bank would charge for the same money, minus the wait, the collateral, and the paperwork. You keep your collateral, you’re not personally on the hook if it goes wrong, and there’s no paperwork to fill out.

It’s also quicker to use than it appears on the surface. Sixty percent of small employers sought external finance in the last year, and over half of them used it merely to meet running costs, in effect a timing issue disguised as capital financing.

One founder who runs on this principle is Seyi Ebenezer, founder and CEO of Payaza Africa, a fintech company processing over $4.16 billion in transactions across 26 countries. Ebenezer, who hasn’t raised venture capital, says operational expenses should be funded by operational cash flow, not by borrowing first and asking later.

Bank and SBA credit are cheaper than the alternatives, and slower than you want

Banks are next, and they’re still the best deal if you can wait. The SBA caps how much a lender can add on top of the prime rate, and that allowed markup shrinks as the loan size grows, per the SBA’s 7(a) terms. A $300,000 loan can’t legally exceed 11.25 percent; push past $350,000, and the ceiling drops to under 10 percent.

The catch is speed, or the lack of it. Underwriting takes weeks, and sometimes longer, just at the time when you need it the most, which is last month. According to Ebenezer, bank credit review can run “five to eight weeks”, he says, “and by then, market opportunities may already have passed.” Knowing where to apply is also important; small banks had the highest approval rate of any kind of lender last year, with 57 percent of the people who applied being approved. 

Grants are real money, and they just came back online

If your business conducts research, then you should look into grants. Congress last year authorized federal SBIR and STTR funding for six months before it ran out, after which it was reauthorized through 2031. The lesson to learn from that gap is this – this money goes to a mission, not your growth plan, and a source that Congress can remove at the drop of a hat isn’t one to build a hiring plan around.

There is no equity diluted, and there is no equity to pay back. But the awards are still relatively small: USDA has capped most of its grants at $175,000, and the Energy Department’s Phase I awards are capped at about $200,000. The largest of the three is $1.2 billion annually dedicated to life science research by NIH, not as growth capital.

Revenue-based financing, and the number in the term sheet does not show you

These deals make cash loans against future sales, which are returned as a portion of monthly earnings until you reach a ceiling: Borrow $50,000 at a cap of 1.3, repay $65,000. In theory, that appears to be a simple, flat-rate charge.

It’s not, however, because you don’t repay it in one lump sum at the end—you repay a little every day from day one. That means the amount you actually still owe keeps shrinking the whole time, so on average you’re only carrying about half the original balance, not the full amount. This is exactly what makes the real cost so much higher than the flat cap suggests.

I run my own company on this kind of financing, and the highest-return hour I’ve spent on any of it was rebuilding a term sheet into a monthly repayment schedule before signing, because that’s exactly where the real number shows up.

None of this makes revenue-based financing a trap to avoid outright, though. It means this option only makes sense for spending that pays back on the same fast timeline the financing assumes. Inventory that turns over in 90 days can carry that cost and still work; a hire you’re planning to keep for years cannot.

Choosing the right fit

These approaches are really the whole funding ladder for the 99 percent, once you see it laid out end to end. From my experience, the only rule that’s held every time is this: cheap, slow money belongs on things with a long payback, and expensive, fast money belongs on things that pay back just as fast. Before signing anything this quarter, ask for the total dollars repaid, not the rate, and run it against your worst month, not your average one.

https://www.inc.com/tobi-opeyemi-amure/funding-rule-founders-entrepreneurs-borrowing-money-business-loans/91380305?utm_source=newsletters&utm_medium=email&oly_enc_id=9218E7578789E9D

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