This Week in ESG and Impact Investing

(The article below was published on Marketplace. We have edited the piece to reflect our comments.)

"Buy low, sell high.” We’ve all heard the adage before. But investing in the stock market can be a big step. It can be confusing — even daunting — and the terms can make it feel like inside baseball. So here are some basics to know about investing in the stock market before jumping in feet first.

You don’t need a lot of money to invest in the stock market. While you should make sure your finances are healthy before investing, William Michael Cunningham, an investment adviser and CEO of Creative Investment Research, said directly purchasing stock from a company can be done with as little as $25 by buying a fractional share. (For more, https://www.moneycrashers.com/buy-stocks-without-broker/).

..Investing in funds, as opposed to individual stocks, is a good way for beginners to get started.

A mutual fund is a collection of investments in one portfolio account. The mutual fund takes i…

The Federal Reserve Board announced that the Federal Reserve Banks will develop a new round-the-clock real-time payment and settlement service, called the FedNow℠ Service, to support faster payments in the United States.

This is a direct response to the threat posed by digital currencies and blockchain. According to one Fed official, "Last summer, the U.S. Treasury recommended that 'the Federal Reserve move quickly to facilitate a faster retail payments system, such as through the development of a real-time settlement service, that would also allow for more efficient and ubiquitous access to innovative payment capabilities.'” Sounds like blockchain to us, thus, we expect this new system to be blockchain enabled. (For more on blockchain, see: What is Bitcoin? How does it relate to blockchain? Henry Zhang, Creative Investment Research Impact Investing Intern. University of Toronto.  Online at: https://creativeinvest.com/crypto/bitcoinfaq.html)

As we noted in our paper &quo…

RSVP: https://www.gbaglobal.org/event/symposium-the-future-of-money-governance-the-law/