Bunny Wailer, the co-founder and last living member of Jamaican reggae group the Wailers, who took Bob Marley to global stardom, has died aged 73.
His manager Maxine Stowe confirmed his death to the Jamaica Observer. Wailer had been frequently hospitalised since suffering a stroke in July 2020.
Andrew Holness, Jamaica’s prime minister, was among those paying tribute, offering “deep condolences” to his family, friends and fans, and calling his death “a great loss for Jamaica and for reggae”.
Born Neville Livingston in 1947 in Kingston, he and Marley became friends as toddlers, and formed the Wailers in 1963, which settled into a core trio of the pair alongside Peter Tosh. They released their debut album, The Wailing Wailers, in 1965 (which included their Jamaican chart-topper Simmer Down), before going on hiatus when Marley moved to Delaware in the US. Wailer was convicted for marijuana possession in 1967, and served a 14 month sentence.
Bunny Wailer, right, with Bob Marley and the Wailers in London, 1973. Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
They reconvened after Marley’s return and Wailer’s release, teaming with producer Lee “Scratch” Perry and his group the Upsetters, and began recording tracks in the new, slower reggae style that had emerged out of ska. Wailer penned a number of the group’s songs, including what would become his signature song, Dreamland.
By the early 70s, the Wailers had added new members and signed to Island Records, which – aided by the popularity of other new reggae stars such as Jimmy Cliff – helped bring them to international audiences. They had a global breakthrough with fifth album Catch a Fire (1973) and its follow-up, Burnin’, which featured what would become one of Marley’s signature songs, I Shot the Sheriff.
The original trio split in 1974, when Wailer left alongside Tosh. He began a solo career, beginning with 1976’s acclaimed Blackheart Man, and maintained a steady release schedule for 40 years. He won the Grammy award for best reggae album three times, in 1991, 1995, and 1997.
There’s a new star in the investing space, and her name is Cathie Wood. The founder of the ARK Invest family of actively managed exchange-traded funds has revolutionized the industry, eschewing passive index tracking in favor of good old-fashioned stock picking. All five of Wood’s ETFs have more than doubled over the past year, and all five feature diverse portfolios with several dozen stocks among their holdings.
However, there’s one stock that Wood has praised more than any other. It’s been an integral part of her ETFs’ holdings over the past year, and its performance has been crucial to the success of ARK Invest. Below, we’ll share what Wood has said about this company and whether she thinks it still has good growth prospects for the future.
The only bull in a room full of bears
After a stock has soared, it’s easy to be bullish. But Wood was excited about her favorite stock long before it was red-hot — and even when many believed it was on the verge of collapse.
Image source: Getty Images.
To get some context, look back to August 2019. The share price of Wood’s favorite had fallen by a third since the beginning of the year. Many were skeptical of its ability to bounce back from one of many controversies surrounding the company and its CEO. The company even cut prices on its main product line, and some even feared that a bankruptcy filing could be imminent.
The stock, of course, is Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), and nothing happening with the company 1 1/2 years ago deterred Wood from her bullish views. “We think the negative sentiment is pretty unbelievable,” she said in a CNBC interview. Wood saw gross margins for the company’s products rising over time and pointed to the ancillary potential of autonomous-vehicle technology as a huge tech asset on which no one at the time was putting much value.
In terms of competition, Wood noted, Tesla was building its own competitive advantage by building the go-to place of employment for those interested in innovation. “It’s getting all the really great software engineers,” she told CityWireUSA. “Tesla is taking all the oxygen out of the room for the other automakers.”
It was long before that, in early 2018, when Wood put a seemingly outlandish $4,000 per-share price target on the stock. By early 2020, she had upped that call to $15,000 per share, with a time frame of 2024.
Despite all her critics, Wood was right. Her bullish calls were made before Tesla did its 5-for-1 split, so the old $4,000 and $15,000 price targets work out to $800 and $3,000, respectively, post-split. Tesla hit $800 per share earlier this year and remains near that level. That’s taken $10,000 invested this time last year at a level closer to a split-adjusted $160 per share and turned it into nearly $50,000.
TSLA data by YCharts.
As for Tesla reaching $3,000 per share, that might take a few more years. But Wood hasn’t retracted that call and is still adding to what’s already an extensive position in Tesla in her ARK Invest ETFs.
Big bets on Tesla
You won’t find a stock among ARK Invest’s ETFs that has more money invested in it than Tesla. The following ETFs have positions:
The flagship ARK Innovation ETF (NYSEMKT:ARKK) is ARK Invest’s biggest active ETF and holds 3.1 million shares worth nearly $2.48 billion at recent prices. Tesla makes up almost 9% of the fund’s total assets.
ARK Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF (NYSEMKT:ARKQ) is much smaller but has an even bigger concentration in Tesla stock. The fund holds about 511,000 shares valued at more than $400 million, making up just under 10% of the ETF’s assets.
Another 1 million shares of Tesla are in the hands of ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (NYSEMKT:ARKW). Those shares have a value of just shy of $800 million, representing 8.5% of assets under management.
At least for now, Wood hasn’t found any way to include Tesla in the holdings of ARK Invest’s genomics or fintech ETFs. However, with the Elon Musk-led company, you never know what could be in store.
Buying more Tesla
Despite those big positions, Wood remains bullish on Tesla. Just this week, she said that ARK Invest has been buying shares. Wood pointed to the potential value of ride-hailing as yet another market for Tesla to tap into.
Tesla continues to inspire both bullish and bearish calls across the investment community. But two things are certain: Wood’s belief in the EV pioneer hasn’t wavered, and thus far, her calls about her favorite stock have panned out extremely well for ARK Invest’s shareholders.
Huawei is not the company it was a couple of years ago when it was on its way to becoming the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer. Restrictions placed on the firm by the U.S. forced Huawei to sell its Honor sub-brand in order to get Honor out from under the thumb of the U.S. The manufacturer that could have been number one this year is more likely to be number seven by the end of the year.
Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei says that Apple has the best 5G phones
According to Forbes, Huawei is aware that in one major regard, it is much closer to being like Apple than it is to being like other Android manufacturers in its class such as Samsung and arguably Google. Like Apple, Huawei has more control over both the hardware and software used on its phones. The head of Huawei’s U.K. consumer business told Forbes last year that “we are one of only two companies globally that can have this hardware and software solution for our own ecosystem… Only Huawei and Apple can do this—it’s our long-term strategy.”
Apple has the best 5G handsets says Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei
A couple of years ago, Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei admitted that he uses an iPhone and even buys them for his family. Ren said in 2019, “iPhone has a good ecosystem and when my family are abroad, I still buy them iPhones, so one can’t narrowly think love for Huawei should mean loving Huawei phones.” That same year, the executive said,”Apple is the world’s leading company… Apple is my teacher; it is advancing in front of us.” When Ren’s daughter, Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in 2018 under a U.S. warrant for fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud, she had in her possession a MacBook, an iPad, and an iPhone.
Zhengfei says that the 5G iPhone 12 series features the best 5G enabled handsets currently available. He calls them “the world’s best” 5G phones and has talked up the quality of the technology found in the 2020 iPhone lineup. He has also used Apple’s 5G iPhone models as a way to promote the quality of Huawei’s 5G networking equipment; Huawei remains the world’s largest supplier of networking equipment. “We support the progress made by Apple’s iPhone 12,” Ren said, pointing out that the device “has been able to achieve download speeds of 1.82 Gbps, making it the best in the world… We helped build the best 5G networks in many cities around the world: Berlin, Munich, Madrid, Zurich, Geneva, Amsterdam, Vienna, Barcelona, Seoul, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Riyadh… Our networks in Europe top global network performance tests.” As the company stated just last week, “Huawei has undertaken hundreds of 5G networks worldwide. According to the results of 5G network experience test in global major cities conducted by many third-party organizations around the world, in cities such as Seoul, Amsterdam, Madrid, Zurich, Hong Kong, and Riyadh, Huawei’s contracted operators ranked number one in 5G network experience.”
Ren also complemented Apple’s dominance of the high-end premium phone sector and said that Huawei’s networking equipment is good for iPhone users. Ren commented that “Many high-end device users in Europe use iPhones, and the way those phones operate on our networks in Europe actually is a sign we are also doing well. The fact high-end users can use the iPhone 12 to its fullest effect on our 5G networks in Europe is a testament to the quality of our networks. This is helping balance opinions towards Huawei in Europe.” Zhengfei pointed out last year that “there are only two big players with ecosystems,” he said, “Apple and Google. It will not be a problem to have a third one. In any industry, three top players is reasonable.” Huawei has since added its own ecosystem and we could see the company’s own HarmonyOS debut on a smartphone with the upcoming P50 line.
Hustler magazine founder Larry Flynt has died. He was 78.The magazine first debuted in 1974 and has depicted nude women more explicitly than its competitor Playboy, which was in print from 1953 to 2020.His brother confirmed the news to The Washington Post.His business has repeatedly found itself in legal battles involving the magazine. One case involved prominent evangelist Jerry Falwell Sr. and a parody ad. It turned into a landmark Supreme Court decision in 1988 against public figures.Flynt was born in eastern Kentucky and was married five times.This is a developing story.
Hustler magazine founder Larry Flynt has died. He was 78.
The magazine first debuted in 1974 and has depicted nude women more explicitly than its competitor Playboy, which was in print from 1953 to 2020.
His brother confirmed the news to The Washington Post.
His business has repeatedly found itself in legal battles involving the magazine.
One case involved prominent evangelist Jerry Falwell Sr. and a parody ad. It turned into a landmark Supreme Court decision in 1988 against public figures.
Flynt was born in eastern Kentucky and was married five times.
A 24-year-old founder of two cryptocurrency hedge funds pleaded guilty to securities fraud on Thursday.
The two hedge funds had more than $100 million in assets, the Department of Justice said.
He embezzled almost all of one’s capital to pay for personal expenses including a penthouse apartment.
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The founder of a cryptocurrency hedge fund that claimed to use a trading algorithm to capitalize on price differences in several crypto assets pleaded guilty to securities fraud on Thursday, the Department of Justice said.
Stefan He Qin, a 24-year-old Australian national, admitted in court that he had embezzled nearly all the assets raised in his Virgil Sigma Fund, which along with his VQR Multistrategy Fund had more than $100 million in assets, the DOJ said.
Qin used the assets to pay for personal expenses including a penthouse apartment.
Prosecutors said Qin stole money from investors in Virgil Sigma, then tried to pay them back with the assets raised from investors in his second multistrategy fund.
“The whole house of cards has been revealed, and Qin now awaits sentencing for his brazen thievery,” Audrey Strauss, the acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement.
For years Qin made misrepresentations and false promises to lure new investors into his funds. Marketing materials for Virgil Sigma claimed that the strategy had been profitable every month since August 2016 except for March 2017, the DOJ said.
Qin faces a sentence of as long as 20 years in prison.
In a statement, Qin’s lawyers said he “has accepted full responsibility for his actions and is committed to doing what he can to make amends.”
Read more: Market wizard Michael Kean has averaged a 29% annual compounded return since starting his company 10 years ago. He shares his unique stock-picking strategy and 4 pieces of advice for anyone who wants to become a trader.
Decades ago, a software program called Trillian introduced a way for internet users to interact with multiple IM networks, like ICQ, AIM and MSN Messenger, in a single window. Now, Pebble founder and Y Combinator Partner Eric Migicovsky is revisiting this concept, but this time with a focus on centralizing access to modern-day chat applications. Through the newly launched app, Beeper, users can connect with 15 different messaging services, including WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Instagram and Twitter DMs, Messenger, Skype, Hangouts and others — even, through a few tricks, iMessage.
Migicovsky says he first came up with the idea for a universal chat app while working on the smartwatch pioneer Pebble, before its acquisition by Fitbit.
“We really wanted Pebble to be able to send iMessages, but we could never figure out a way to do it because there’s no API for iMessage,” he explains. But the idea for Beeper came to a head two years ago when he learned about a protocol called Matrix. “All of Beeper is built on top of Matrix, which is this open-source federated, encrypted messaging protocol,” he says.
Migicovsky describes Matrix as mostly “a hacker thing,” but believes it’s starting to take off among developers. Basically, Matrix offers an API that allows developers to connect with other chat networks using a “bridge,” which relays the messages back and forth from one side to another.
“When I learned about that, I was like ‘Hey, we could build Trillion using Matrix,’” Migicovsky says.
Image Credits: Beeper
Migicovsky began to work on Beeper as a side project with Tulir Asokan, a Matrix contributor he met in a Matrix chat room.
To make Beeper (previously called Nova) work with all the different chat apps, they had to build these connecting “bridges.” This code is also open-sourced and available at Gitlab.com/Nova.
“We think it’s really important for people to know what code they’re running — so it’s all open source. People can inspect it,” notes Migicovsky.
Because of this, people also don’t have to pay Beeper the $10 per month it’s charging for access to the service. If they know what they’re doing, they can just run the bridges on their own servers, if they choose.
While every messaging platform has its own unique setup in Beeper, making iMessage work was the most complicated. And the workaround here is somewhat involved, to put it mildly.
Beeper actually ships its users an old, jailbroken iPhone (iPhone 4S, because it’s cheap) to serve as the bridge. The code installed on the iPhone reads and writes to the database file where your iMessages are stored. The iPhone encrypts the messages with your own private key and then sends it over the Beeper network. This means Beeper, the company, can’t read your messages, Migicovsky says.
This process allows Android, Windows and Linux users to use iMessage. But it’s not the only way Beeper can make iMessages work. Mac users with an always-on device can instead choose to install a Beeper Mac app to work as the bridge.
Migicovsky says he’s not afraid of any shutdown attempts or litigation by Apple.
“What are they going to do?,” he asks, rhetorically.
Even if Apple somehow stopped Beeper from providing jailbroken iPhones to users, the company could redirect their customers to acquire their own old iPhones from Craigslist instead. Meanwhile, the software itself is open source and running on an iPhone at the user’s house — so Beeper isn’t really “hacking” into iMessage itself.
“I think given the current climate of messaging freedom — I think it would be insane for Apple to start picking a fight with their own users,” Migicovsky adds. Plus, he notes that the European Commission is working on draft legislation similar to the GDPR that mandates all companies to open up messaging for other platforms.
“When that passes, they legally won’t be able to block people from doing something like Beeper,” Migicovsky notes.
Image Credits: Beeper
Beeper, of course, is not the first or only startup focused on trying to break through the iMessage lockdown. Other apps have tried to do this in the past, like AirMessage or weMessage, for example. They have only seen limited adoption, however. And Beeper is not the only startup to try to centralize chat applications, either — Texts.com is developing a similar system.
That said, signups for Beeper were bigger than Migicovsky expected, he says, though declined to share the details. He says Beeper is slowly onboarding users as a result. (For that reason, we have not been able to actually use Beeper. We can’t speak to its claims or usability.)
Despite the competition, where Beeper may have an advantage is in understanding what makes for a great user experience. Pebble, after all, sold over 2 million watches.
Today, Beeper promises features like search, snoozing, archiving, and reminders, and works across MacOS, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android.
Longer term, Migicovsky envisions a platform that could do more than just text and share media, stickers and emoji, like other chat apps. Instead, the team is building a platform that would allow people to build more tools and apps on top of Beeper — a system sort of like Gmail’s plugins. For example, there could be tools that would let users schedule calendar events from within their chats. Or perhaps a tool could help you see all the most recent messages you’ve had with a particular user across different platforms, like Clearbit.
Migicovsky declined also to detail how the work on Beeper is being financed but when asked if Beeper could be the next step for him — as in, a new company to work on — he replied, “possibly.”
“I’m enjoying my time at YC. It is fantastic. I was just inspired by all the companies that I work with to do this. Part of being VC is talking to all these founders who are building cool stuff and launching it. And I got a little bit jealous,” he admits.
