Space-based broadband internet for the masses is being built over at Elon Musk's SpaceX, with the initial launch of the service -- dubbed Starlink -- expected by the end of 2020. The company's forward-thinking mentality on the commercialization of the final frontier is partially responsible for the surge in interest in investing in the movement. Problem is, SpaceX isn't a publicly traded company, leaving just a few names like Virgin Galactic (NYSE:SPCE) for investors to choose from when it comes to innovation in the burgeoning space economy.

But there's another possibility: Iridium Communications (NASDAQ:IRDM), which just completed its first year operating its own broadband-speed service with global coverage. The company has yet to reach peak operational efficiency with its new satellite constellation, but solid progress is being made.

Image source: Getty Images.

When I first bought in on Iridium a few years ago, it was all on the promise of the company being able to deploy its NEXT satellite constellation, a broadband-speed communications service with 100% coverage of the globe. The company already provided services -- primarily to government organizations, and the maritime and aviation industries -- but high-speed data services were something else entirely.

Fast-forward a few years (and some 220% in share price advance), and NEXT is up and running. The service has helped Iridium reignite growth with new global Internet of Things connectivity capabilities and broadband internet for industries operating in remote locations (like aviation, maritime, mining, and government entities). A new air traffic control system based on the satellites, called Aireon, is also just getting going. With the first year of next-gen operations in the books, 18% total growth in billable subscribers led to a 10% increase in service revenues.

Service

End of 2019 Billable Subscribers

End of 2018 Billable Subscribers

% Growth

Commercial voice and data

363,000

361,000

1%

Commercial IoT

802,000

647,000

24%

Government voice and data

57,000

54,000

6%

Government IoT

78,000

59,000

32%

Data source: Iridium Communications.

For 2020, management said to expect another 6% to 8% increase in service revenue to $474 million to $483 million, and operational earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) to increase 7% to 10% to $355 million to $365 million. Not too shabby.

More importantly, though, is that with the NEXT satellites now in orbit and Iridium having recently restructured its debt associated with getting the constellation in orbit, free cash flow (what's left after cash operating and capital expenses are paid for) ran at positive $80.3 million in 2019. Management expects free cash flow should increase somewhere in the 20% ballpark in 2020.

But what about that new SpaceX Starlink service coming online? Iridium CEO Matthew Desch had this to say on the last earnings call:

I would say that they're mostly focused on what I would call the commodity broadband space, trying to provide services that compete almost -- more with existing [very small aperture terminal (VSAT)] and fixed satellite services space, but even going beyond that to someone like StarLink or maybe someday Amazon Web Services, I would say that they're even going after what I would call the core fixed market, particularly consumer kind of markets that maybe are served by Hughes and ViaSat today or even by fiber and other kinds of solutions. Those are completely different markets from what Iridium is interested in or has been addressing. We've stayed away from those.

Desch said he and the rest of Iridium are rooting on the progress of Starlink and others because it's good for the space industry and complementary to the service Iridium already provides -- namely, commercial and government broadband versus consumer broadband. That should put a potential investor's mind at ease for now about future disruption. For the time being, though, Iridium Communications looks like one of the better ways to invest in the growing space economy.

Read the original here:
Looking to Invest in SpaceX? This Public Company Already Generates Revenue From Its Next-Gen Satellite Constellation - The Motley Fool

German-listed companies invest 11 times more in low-carbon investments such as electric vehicles, renewable energy and smart energy grids than UK firms. Photograph: Alamy

British companies are lagging far behind their European neighbours in low-carbon investment after contributing only 3% of the continents 124bn (104.2bn) green spending last year.

A report has revealed that German-listed companies invested 11 times more in low-carbon investments such as electric vehicles, renewable energy and smart energy grids than UK firms.

London-listed companies spent 4bn on green research and technologies compared with 44.4bn from German groups, including the carmaker Volkswagen, which invested more than a third of Europes total low-carbon spending in 2019.

The report, from the climate disclosure organisation CDP, said Germany, Spain and Italy topped the company league table for low-carbon investment last year while the UK finished sixth, below France and Denmark.

The report, which was co-authored by the global management consulting firm Oliver Wyman, reflected well on countries that are home to major manufacturers and utilities that have made heavy investments in electric vehicles and renewable energy projects in the last year.

By contrast, UK companies did not fare as well in the investment rankings because much of the countrys green infrastructure spending is outsourced to foreign companies, including Spains Iberdrola, the owner of Scottish Power, and the Danish wind power giant rsted.

The report warned that despite the 124bn investment in green solutions across the continent, low-carbon spending will need to double if Europe hopes to meet its climate targets.

On average, companies included in the report dedicated about 12% of their annual spending to low-carbon technologies but this will need to rise to 25% to help create a carbon-neutral Europe.

UK and EU leaders have agreed to be climate neutral, or net zero, by 2050 in a bid to keep global temperatures from climbing to levels that could lead to catastrophic climate chaos.

Steven Tebbe, the managing director of CDP in Europe, said achieving this goal means that Europes economy needs to cut its emissions at the rate of nearly 8%, which requires a fundamental transformation of our economic business model.

He said: The investment decisions taken by European companies and their owners will make or break whether we are successful and they need to double down.

The report found that almost 900 listed European companies invested a total of 59bn in new low-carbon capital investments and 65bn in research and development last year.

The biggest areas of new investment were in research and development of electric vehicle technologies, which reached 43bn across Europe, and capital investment in renewable energy, which reached 16bn. Investment in energy grid infrastructure and smart energy technology climbed to 15bn and 8bn respectively.

Across many types of investment, the business case for transitioning businesses on to a low-carbon pathway is clear and the opportunities vast, Tebbe said.

The CDP estimates that the potential value of Europes new low-carbon business opportunities could reach 1.22tn more than six times the 192bn of green investment required to realise this financial benefit.

But overall current investment levels are still short of putting European firms on track for net zero emissions, he said.

For industries where decarbonisation is more challenging, there is a serious need for financial markets and policymakers to create better conditions for low-carbon investment and deliver stronger incentives to drive investment into breakthrough technologies, where capital expenditure is often high and returns long-term.

Read more:
UK lags behind in 124bn European low-carbon investment table - The Guardian

Ultimate isnt a term to toss around lightly. But in this case it fits. I believe the investment portfolio Im about to describe is the absolute best way for most investors to achieve long-term growth in the stock markets and Ive believed that since the 1990s.

My view is based on the best academic research I know of as well as my own experience working with thousands of investors over the past half century. Ive been recommending this combination for more than 20 years, and it is the basis of the majority of my own investments.

Ive got loads of evidence to back up my confidence. The strategy itself isnt new, and as I do every year, I am updating the results to reflect one more year of data.

In a nutshell, the ultimate portfolio starts with the S&P 500 Index SPX, -4.42%, then adds small and equal portions of nine other carefully selected U.S. and international asset classes, each one of which is an excellent long-term diversification vehicle.

The result is a low-cost equity portfolio with massive diversification that will take advantage of market opportunities wherever they are, and at about the same risk as that of the S&P 500.

I like to roll this out in steps rather than all at once, so you can see how it goes together. Heres a table that might make it easier to follow along.

The base ingredient in this portfolio is the S&P 500 Index, which is a pretty decent investment all by itself. For the past 50 calendar years, from 1970 through 2019, the S&P 500 compounded at 10.6%. An initial investment of $100,000 would have grown to nearly $15.4 million.

For the sake of our discussion, think of the S&P 500 index as Portfolio 1. Its not bad, and you could do much worse. But you can do a whole lot better, too.

You take the first small step by adding large-cap value stocks, ones that are regarded as relatively underpriced (hence the term value).

(The links above, and others below, are to specific articles from 2015 that focus on each asset class.)

By moving only 10% of the portfolio from the S&P 500 into large-cap value stocks (thus leaving the other 90% in the S&P 500), you create what I call Portfolio 2.

Although only 10% of the portfolio has changed, the 50-year return improves enough to be worth noticing. Assuming annual rebalancing (an assumption that applies throughout this discussion), the 10.8% compound return of Portfolio 2 was enough to turn $100,000 into $16.9 million.

In dollars, this simple step adds more than 15 times your entire original investment of $100,000 the result of changing only one-tenth of the portfolio. If that isnt enough to get your attention, I dont know what would it would take.

In the next step we build Portfolio 3 by putting another 10% into U.S. small-cap blend stocks, decreasing the weight of the S&P 500 to 80%. Small-cap stocks, both in the U.S. and internationally, have a long history of higher returns than the stocks of larger companies.

This change boosts the 50-year compound return of the portfolio to 11%; an initial $100,000 investment would have grown to nearly $18.1 million an increase of $2.7 million from Portfolio 1.

Taking still another small step, we add 10% in U.S. small-cap value stocks, reducing the weight of the S&P 500 to 70%.

Small-cap value stocks historically have been the most productive of all major U.S. asset classes, and they boost the compound return of Portfolio 4 to 11.3%, enough to turn that initial $100,000 investment into $21.6 million.

With more than two-thirds of the portfolio still in the S&P 500, that seems like a marvelous result.

In the next step, creating Portfolio 5, we invest another 10% of the portfolio in U.S. REITs funds. Result: a compound return of 11.4% and an ending portfolio value of $22.3 million.

Lets pause for a moment to recap.

First, Portfolio 5s increase in compound return over Portfolio 4 was small, but over 50 years that tiny step produced an additional $708,000. This is a lesson I hope you wont ever forget: Small differences in return, given enough time, can add up to big differences in dollars.

Second, Portfolio 5, with its substantially higher return, had essentially the same risk level as the S&P 500 Index. Higher returns, without adding risk, has to be a winning combination.

Some investors may wish to stop here and not invest in international stocks. If thats the limit of your comfort level, thats fine. The combination of asset classes in Portfolio 5 is excellent, and I expect it will do well in the future.

But I believe any portfolio worth being described as ultimate must venture beyond the U.S. borders. And the rewards have definitely been there.

Accordingly, in building the ultimate equity portfolio I add four important international asset classes: international large-cap blend stocks, international large-cap value stocks, international small-cap blend stocks and international small-cap value stocks.

Giving each of these a 10% weight reduces the influence of the S&P 500 to 20%. If that sounds frightening, think about this: Over 50 years, the changes I just described (Portfolio 6) increased the compound return to 12%, and the portfolio value to $29.4 million.

That is an increase of 91% over the S&P 500 by itself. And Portfolio 6 produced that result with only a slight increase in statistical risk.

The final step, which results in Portfolio 7, is to add 10% in emerging markets stocks, representing countries with expanding economies and prospects for rapid growth. While this asset class has been a laggard lately, in eight of the most recent 20 calendar years, it was either the top-performing equity asset class or No. 2.

This additional slice of emerging markets stocks boosts the compound return to 12.6% and brings the final portfolio value to a whopping $37 million nearly 2.5 times that of the S&P 500 alone.

Thats the Ultimate Buy and Hold Portfolio, which over nearly half a century obviously stood the test of time very well.

As you will see, Table 1 includes another column, labeled Portfolio 8. This is my suggested All-Value Portfolio, which includes only five asset classes instead of the 10 in Portfolio 7. Portfolio 8 starts with Portfolio 7, then eliminates REITs and the blend asset classes. The 50-year performance of Portfolio 8 is slightly less than that of Portfolio 7, but still stunning at 12.6% in compound return and a final value of just under $37.1 million. Portfolios 7 and 8 are among the results of my long-standing commitment to find higher expected rates of return with little or no additional risk.

Investors who build either of these portfolios using low-cost index funds or ETFs dont have to rely on anybodys ability to choose stocks. Nor must they make economic or market predictions.

Obviously, all these performance statistics are based on the past. Will we see returns like these in the future? Nobody knows.

However, every academic Im familiar with expects that, over the long term, stocks will continue to outperform bonds, small-cap stocks will continue to outperform large-cap stocks, and value stocks will continue to outperform growth stocks.

Depending on your need for return and your risk tolerance, Portfolios 7 and 8 are the best ways I know to put those insights to work for you.

Its easier to describe this strategy than to implement it in real life. Youll get an excellent start with this article, in which my friend and colleague Chris Pedersen identifies the best-in-class exchange-traded funds for all these building blocks.

Theres much more to say on this whole topic, and I hope youll check out my podcast 10 more things you need to know about the Ultimate Buy and Hold Strategy.

Richard Buck contributed to this article.

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This is the best way to achieve long-term growth in your stock investments - MarketWatch

The Climate Crisis and Peak oil demand are making expensive projects like Alberta's Teck Frontier look like bad investments.

Everybody in Canada is pointing fingers about Teck Resources cancelling it's giant $20 billion open pit tar sands mine. Alberta's Premier Kenney blames 'Urban-green-left zealots' and says it will "further weaken national unity. Temporary leader of the opposition Scheer blames the Prime Minister, saying "Justin Trudeaus inaction has emboldened radical activists" and Make no mistake: Justin Trudeau killed Teck Frontier.

But the fact is that it made no economic sense in a world awash in cheap oil; Teck needed $95 a barrel to break even and Canadian oil is selling for $38. Permian Basin oil sells for $50. And who was going to lend Teck $20 billion, when the people who fund these projects are pulling out of the market?

Many have joined Climate Action 100+, "an investor initiative launched in 2017 to ensure the worlds largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters take necessary action on climate change."

And now, JPMorgan Chase is warning that climate change is a threat to "human life as we know it." According to Bloomberg,

The response to climate change should be motivated not only by central estimates of outcomes but also by the likelihood of extreme events, bank economists David Mackie and Jessica Murray wrote in a Jan. 14 report to clients. We cannot rule out catastrophic outcomes where human life as we know it is threatened.

This is from a company that has invested $75 billion in fracking and Arctic oil, and right now is demolishing a perfectly good, recently renovated building, with an upfront carbon load in replacing the square footage of about 63,971 tonnes of CO2. Even they are now talking climate crisis.

According to the JP Morgan report leaked to the Guardian, "the climate crisis will impact the world economy, human health, water stress, migration and the survival of other species on Earth."

Drawing on extensive academic literature and forecasts by the International Monetary Fund and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the paper notes that global heating is on course to hit 3.5C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century... The authors say policymakers need to change direction because a business-as-usual climate policy would likely push the earth to a place that we havent seen for many millions of years, with outcomes that might be impossible to reverse.

Although precise predictions are not possible, it is clear that the Earth is on an unsustainable trajectory. Something will have to change at some point if the human race is going to survive.

JP Morgan is backtracking a bit, telling the BBC that the report was wholly independent from the company as a whole, and not a commentary on it, but it is all part of a trend.

Take that Mad Money guy, Jim Cramer, who is saying "fossil fuels are done." He doesn't mention climate change, but blames investor attitudes. Quoted by Nick Cunningham in Oilprice.com:

I am sorry, but you cannot blame Justin Trudeau for that.

The Climate Crisis and Peak oil demand are making expensive projects like Alberta's Teck Frontier look like bad investments.

See the article here:
Oil investments are the new tobacco - Treehugger

There's been a lot of turbulence lately in the stock market, with indexes soaring to new record highs only to hit big air pockets that send them plunging again. With global issues like the COVID-19 outbreak adding to existing geopolitical and macroeconomic worries, there's a lot for investors to keep in mind.

Even when times are tough, it's important to stick with an investing plan. But that doesn't mean you need to be a superhero with your portfolio. To help you calm your nerves, here are three things you can consider to help you take advantage of turbulent markets while staying in your natural comfort zone.

If you have a lot of cash on the sidelines and want to put some of it to work, then jumping in right after a big down move can a great thing to do. However, nobody wants to invest all of their available cash only to see the market keep on falling even further. There are a lot more shallow corrections than full-blown bear markets, but the psychological impact of being wrong can be even more damaging to your investing plan than missing out on the full profits from investing right at a bottom.

Image source: Getty Images.

One thing that many investors do in this situation is to break their available cash into pieces. You can then invest one piece right away, taking advantage of bargain prices on stocks you like. Then, you can either set a timeline for investing future amounts or you can look to invest more money if the prices on the stocks you like fall even further and therefore look even more attractive.

You have complete flexibility to set things up in whatever way makes you most comfortable. But by eliminating the pressure of having to invest every single penny all at once, you can feel more confident that you'll end up where you want to be in the long run.

Another thing you can do when the market starts looking more attractive is to increase the amount of money you divert toward investing for retirement. Most employers let you set how much money you have taken out of your paycheck as a 401(k) contribution as a percentage of your total pay, and adding a percentage point or two to your contribution amount can help you take greater advantage of bargains while they last. If the market rebounds, you can always move the percentage back down.

Increase your retirement savings is especially effective because many workers don't even notice all that much the money that's coming out of their paychecks to go toward 401(k) contributions. Put more money to work when markets are falling, and you'll be in an even better situation when the rebound comes.

Dollar-cost averaging is a simple but effective technique that fits well with most investors' mindset. To use it, you just take the same dollar amount every month or every quarter and invest it. Over time, the amount you invest will buy more shares when the price of a stock or fund is low, and buy fewer shares when the price is high.

Dollar-cost averaging works best when markets are choppy, because you get a lot of opportunities to buy more shares when they're cheap. However, it's a time-tested strategy that also works well over the long run, and millions of investors have used it to give themselves a sense of security and safety as their portfolios grow.

Whenever the stock market starts to have big ups and downs, it can make even experienced investors feel a little seasick. By looking at these three ways to keep investing, though, you'll be able to get past your fear and stay on track to meet your long-term financial goals.

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3 Ways to Keep Investing Even When You're Scared - The Motley Fool

Seke Ballard

On January 1, 2020, Illinois joined 11 other states and DC to legalize recreational marijuana. Personally, Ive never been a huge fan of weed, except for the occasional brownie or gummy. Yet on Friday, January 3, I waited for four hours to get my first sample of legal weed. I would have done it sooner, but for the first two days, I didnt get there in time; the dispensarys staff had already cut the line off.

My main thought while waiting? How much money are these people making anyway? The people shepherding us through the line dropped the stat that Illinois made over $5M in revenue in the first two days alone (and nearly $11M over the course of the first five days). The cannabis industry is expected to grow from $40 billion in 2020 to $80 billion in 2030.

Some of my clients have raised the idea of getting into the business whether through a dispensary, farming or consulting. Everyone wants to be a part of The Green Rush, but theres still a lot of uncertainty and confusion on just how to do that.

Enter Seke Ballard. Seke is the Founder & CEO of Good Tree Capital, a financial technology firm that grants loans to vetted, licensed cannabis companies. It also allows people to invest in these loans as a way of using their funds to help out entrepreneurs and earn interest in the process. By using an innovative approach to evaluating credit risk, this Harvard Business School grad and his company are revolutionizing the way we all can invest in marijuana.

Bridging the Gap

Seke is passionate about the role of capital in the creation of wealth and economic development. I was taught by my father from an early age that the way to true wealth was creating my own business, he said. He was also fascinated by the history of black-owned banks and how discrimination in capital distribution has led to an extraordinary Racial Wealth Gap. He recently got lost in a nerd rabbit hole after reading an Atlantic article about the serious decline of black-owned banks after the great recession.

The book The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap by Mehrsa Baradaran, takes an even deeper dive. Its dire statistics demonstrate that the hand that drives black poverty is not a natural and invisible one, but rather the coercive hand of the state that has consistently excluded blacks from full participation in American capitalism. If you have not read it, get to a bookstore or Amazon right away. Heres a few of the stats youll find:

After doing the research, Seke realized that many of the remaining black banks were on the brink of failure because of the health of their loan portfolios. This industry is ripe for disruption, he said. My motivation is to build a better mousetrap.

A new way of lending

Seke aimed to build a model that moved capital more efficiently. It could take four to six months for an SBA loan applicant to fill out paper forms, gather supporting documents, submit the information and get a response from a loan officer. The trailing 10-year default rate on those loans is 17.6%, which adds to the costs of servicing and collecting on them. And the process is heavily biased. All things being equal, people of color are 2.7x more likely to get denied for a loan and pay higher interest rates, he said. Our lending model avoids this sort of bias by evaluating applicants based exclusively on their financial and operating data.

Seke got to work building an algorithm that could accurately make lending decisions, relying on the most relevant factors in loan defaults. The only way to avoid bias, he said, is to build the technology with intentionality. He built his technology based on analyzing some 1.2 million loans and pulling out the most important factors. From that, he created rules-based software that incorporated observable, objective metrics in making loan decisions. When he fed the loan data back through his new algorithm, the technology got the decision to approve or deny financing right 98.2% of the time.

It felt like we struck gold, Seke said. We built technology that can do what human loan officers are doing, only much better. Not only is the technology more accurate and efficient, it doesnt contain the subconscious human bias that comes with regular lending. Equally important, lower default rates generate more profit for the investors and lower costs for processing the loans.

Seke Ballard

How it works

Armed with this new technology, Seke quit his high-paying job at Amazon to start Good Tree Capital. He wanted to open up economic opportunities for people interested in the cannabis industry. He focused on the cannabis industry because the people affected most by the criminalization of marijuana (African Americans and Latinos) werent reaping the profits from the now legal sales. There was no overlap in that Venn diagram, he said. I wanted to change that. The American Civil Liberties Union found that between 2001 and 2010, black people were nearly four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana use than whites, despite similar use. Yet recent surveys have shown more the vast majority of legal cannabis companies are owned by white men.

In order to change that, Seke worked very hard in helping craft the Illinois law to make sure people who were most affected by the criminalization got preferences when it came to recreational licenses. These social equity applicants include people who have been arrested or convicted of a cannabis-related offense as well as their families, and people with strong ties to poorer communities disproportionately impacted by cannabis law enforcement. In addition to helping social equity applicants get preference, he has held seminars to help ensure people submit quality applications.

Seke is now focusing on helping people fund their new ventures. Running these ventures is not cheap. The costs associated with the application for a dispensary in Illinois are:

There are also some extra fees associated with the operation of the dispensary:

Seke originally marketed his technology to big banks, but they were not interested given the high risk of investing in the marijuana industry. (It is still illegal on the federal level.) So instead, the company gave loans from its own balance sheet. He has started by offering $250,000 in loans each to 100 social equity applicants hoping to win licenses in Illinois. There are currently 55 licensed cannabis dispensaries in the state. Illinois will issue up to 75 new recreational licenses in May 2020.

To help defray the costs, Seke has covered the loan application fee and provided a letter of intent that the applicants could take to help their application process. Additionally, instead of the loan approval process taking four to six months, hes gotten it down to a week. People apply through the website and they know whether they are rejected or preliminarily approved within minutes. If preliminarily approved, they ask for additional documentation to verify the self-disclosed information.

The results of Sekes technology and hard work have been astounding. Of the Illinois social equity applicants approved through Sekes technology 56% were African American, 14% were Hispanic, 14% were other, 9% were white and 7% were Asian. Additionally, 45% were women.

Hes not done yet. Theres a mountain of unmet demand, Seke said. Hes currently considering taking on more funding from bigger investors to meet this demand. Most investors so far have been happy to invest in a way that aligns with their values and also see a return they wouldnt have gotten otherwise.

Originally posted here:
Meet The Man Revolutionizing Marijuana Investing - Forbes

Sponsored Content provided by Columbia Business School Executive Education

We recently sat down with David Sherman, the co-director of the Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate at Columbia Business School, to discuss the challenges and opportunities in real estate investing, recent technological trends hes seeing in the industry, and why theres a need for better education in this complex asset class.

Sherman brings with him more than 30 years of real estate experience to the position as a former REIT analyst, investment banker, consultant, and for the past 18 years as co-founder, president, and co-chief investment officer of Metropolitan Real Estate. We invite you to take a look at the videos below to hear his insights.

Question: What advice would you give investors who are interested in branching into real estate investing?

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Real Estate Investing Q&A with David Sherman - ABA Banking Journal

Assembly Democrats are calling for more funding to go toward colleges and universities, more money for student living expenses and to keep tuition costs level as part of the houses 2020-21 proposed state budget.

Both the state senate and assembly propose their own state budgets, called one-house budgets every year around mid-March that influence final budget negotiations.

The Assembly Majority has long recognized that higher education is critical to establishing a pathway to the middle class for New Yorkers, said Heastie in a statement released over the weekend. Our proposed budget will reflect our unwavering commitment to higher education by breaking down even more barriers and putting our students on the path to success.

The proposed budget will call for a $50 million investment in the city and state university systems to help close something called the TAP gap, or the difference the state spends in tuition-assistant grants for low-income students and tuition. In 2011, SUNY and CUNY were given the right to increase tuition by $300 over five years under NYSUNY 2020. After the legislation was enacted, both institutions took on the difference between tuition and the states Tuition Assistance Program awards.

According to the statement, the proposed budget will also include $20 million to create the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Fund. The scholarship would help students receive New York State Tuition Assistance pay for room, board, transportation, textbooks and university and college fees.

While proposing more funding, statement added that the assembly will also continue to push back against the proposed tuition hikes at SUNY and CUNY.

Over the last five years, we have fought to keep higher education within reach for our students, and to provide greater access to critical campus resources such as libraries and research facilities, said Assembly Higher Education Committee Chair Deborah Glick.

See the original post here:
Assembly to call for more investment in higher education in proposed New York state budget - amNY

MONROE, La. (KNOE) - When it comes to investing for some, it can be a hard financial strategy to achieve. Certified Financial Counselor Kelly Brantley joined us to share some investing tips to help build wealth.

A saying Kelly always uses when it comes to financial planning is to remember slow and steady wins the race. The same applies to investing.

Before investing, Kelly recommends having all debt paid off except your home.

Have 15% of the investment saved into retirement into company match 401K and then put the rest in a RALT IRA.

The RAFT IRA grows tax-free and redraws tax-free during retirement.

Kelly says the first step to take when investing is to learn how to live on less than what you make.

The first investment to look into is having an emergency fund up to $1,000 in case of crisis.

There are ways of diversifying investing by saving 25% of your money in different funds. Those funds include growth, aggressive growth, income and international funds.

For more tips on investing, call Kelly Brantley at 318-497-1059.

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Investing tips with Kelly Brantley - Knoe.com

Nebraska Plastics, Inc, a vinyl fence manufacturer, will create 22 new jobs in Chowan County, Governor Roy Cooper announced today. The company will invest more than $1 million into a manufacturing facility in Edenton.

Manufacturing companies like Nebraska Plastics choose to grow in North Carolina because of our strong economy, great quality of life, and especially for our talented workforce, said Governor Cooper.

Nebraska Plastics, Inc. started in 1945 producing plastic irrigation products for agriculture. The company first invented vinyl fencing in 1978 under the brand name Country Estate Fence. Headquartered in Cozad, Nebraska, the company has remained a family-owned business for 75 years and supplies products to customers in all 50 states and overseas. Along with vinyl fence and railing, Nebraska Plastics continues to produce a line of above ground and below ground PVC irrigation pipe for agriculture.

The opportunity to produce Country Estate Vinyl Products in Edenton, North Carolina gives us a unique advantage to supply our growing demand on the East Coast by producing products closer to our customers, said Paul German, President and CEO of Nebraska Plastics, Inc. We are excited to be a part of the community of Edenton. Our customers will enjoy the same quality products they are used to. Having two locations now allows us to improve customer service while reducing freight costs.

North Carolina has the fifth largest manufacturing economy in the United States, said North Carolina Commerce Secretary Anthony M. Copeland. With more than 170 million customers within a days drive and the largest manufacturing workforce in the Southeast, North Carolina is a great state for manufacturers to expand their operations.

The North Carolina Department of Commerce led the states support for the companys decision.

Although wages will vary depending on the position, the average for all new positions could reach up to $36,591. The current average annual wage in Chowan County is $34,112.

A performance-based grant of $60,000 from the One North Carolina Fund will help facilitate Nebraska Plastics expansion to North Carolina. The One N.C. Fund provides financial assistance to local governments to help attract economic investment and to create jobs. Companies receive no money upfront and must meet job creation and capital investment targets to qualify for payment. All One N.C. grants require a matching grant from local governments and any award is contingent upon that condition being met.

This is great news for Chowan County, said N.C. Senator Bob Steinburg. The business community and residents will be greatly enriched by these new jobs. We are ready to support the companys expansion in any way we can.

Nebraska Plastics is making a great investment in Edenton and North Carolina, said N.C. Representative Edward C. Goodwin. We are confident that our business climate and East Coast location will help the company thrive."

In addition to N.C. Commerce and the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, other key partners in the project include the North Carolina General Assembly, North Carolina Community College System, Town of Edenton, Chowan County, and Edenton Chowan Partnership.

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Fence Maker to Invest $1 Million in Edenton - NC Dept of Commerce