?? Hacking heating up?

Hacker hall of…infamy? ??

Business is booming… for internet crime. ?? From romance scams and hacks, to phishing, vishing and smishing (seriously!), losses reported across the US from internet crime jumped 64% in 2021 to a record US$6.9 billion, according to the FBI. That’s not just a crime wave, that’s a tsunami. ??

Over one third of that US$6.9 billion came from lucrative attacks on companies. As the Covid pandemic forced us to swap our work boots for our work-from-homes slippers, scammers have engineered a range of new schemes to take full advantage of our remote access. That risk has helped to boost demand for services that independently verify identity, like Okta (OTKA), which last week reported quarterly revenue growth of 65% year-over-year.?

As if to prove that no one’s safe, Okta had to navigate their own awkward hack-attack earlier this year when they were breached by an alleged 16 year old criminal mastermind. ?? The teenager was part of a group known as Lapsus$, which also hacked Microsoft (MSFT) and Nvidia (NVDA), and was able to sneak in through one of Okta’s third party engineers’ computers, who, ironically, wasn’t using Okta’s own multi-factor authentication. #Awks

The cybercrime wave has left companies scrambling to top up their cyber insurance. According to Fitch Ratings, spending on stand-alone cyber insurance coverage almost doubled in 2021. But it’s also been a boom for the cybersecurity companies hired to put protections in place against online foes. CrowdStrike (CRWD) is to big companies what Batman is to Gotham City, and despite their share price falling 18% so far this year, the company last week reported first quarter revenue growth of 61% year-on-year while also increasing their guidance for the rest of the financial year. Holy smokes, CrowdStrike. ??

Sheryl Sandberg: It’s complicated ??

Despite plagues of locusts, hurricanes and tsunamis, 2004 was not a preamble to the world ending. ?? But, was it the beginning of a new ‘dystopian’ world forged by a Harvard drop-out? Facebook, now Meta (FB), was born in an era of heady liberal optimism aiming to do good in the world, all while clipping the ticket. First, Meta made hundreds of millions. Then in 2008, mother of two, Google exec Sheryl Sandberg - instigator of Google’s (GOOG, GOOGL) lucrative advertising model fueled by the phrase ‘don’t be evil’ - was headhunted as Meta’s COO. Frying pan, fire? ???

As the adult in the room, Sandberg was a steady hand on 23-year-old CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s shoulder, paving the way for the global platform to reach beyond just being a social network. Within three years of two ‘bergs at the helm, with Sandberg's advertising prowess, Meta saw titanic revenue growth, from US$150 million to US$3.7 billion. Then in 2012, the company that torpedoed MySpace and Bebo from the metasphere listed on the US share markets. This elevated Sandberg to the billionaires club alongside 103 other women, a mere 8% of all billionaires at the time. ??

Having domesticated the Facebook frat pack, the ‘PowerPoint Pied Piper in Prada ankle boots’ penned her Lean In corporate feminist manifesto. ?? Despite Lean In launching a global community, critics labelled her pompom feminism ‘na?ve’, calling out failings to tackle societal systemic issues, particularly for women of colour.?

After 14 years at the top table, Sandberg now joins The Great Resignation, leaning out of Meta, and her legacy is ‘mixed’. Sure, in 2021, of Meta’s US$117 billion revenue, 97% came from advertising. But under Sandberg’s watch, Zuckerberg was prompted to say ‘I’m sorry’, the company is today facing fresh scrutiny after data management doxxing, and she leaves behind a yawning gender gap for females in tech. …Could the last adult to leave the room please turn out the light? ??

From YOLO to OH-NO!

Investing in 2022 has felt a lot like taking a pie in the face, lately. ?? The big S&P 500 index has fallen 14% and things have deteriorated so much that even Cardi B is asking if we’ve hit a recession yet. Oof! The answer is, not quite. But investing maverick Warren Buffett isn’t waiting around to find out. Buffett has poured US$51 billion into new investments this year through his company Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, BRK.B), including into Top Gun producer, Paramount (PARAA). ??

The market’s been rich pickings for active stock pickers like Buffett. According to Bloomberg, nearly 70% of actively managed US stock mutual funds that try to outperform the S&P 500 have done so in the first half of this year. That’s a big change from last year, when only 15% were able to beat ‘passive’ investors tracking the S&P 500 Vanguard ETF (VOO), which cruised home with an impressive 27.7% return.

Not all actively managed funds are having fun though. Big New York hedge fund Tiger Global has had their returns mauled by 50% this year. Yep, even they might have to dig deeper into their resilience and strength to defeat evil in the Year of the Tiger. ?? While other actively managed funds have also turned from YOLO to ‘OH-NO!’. Like the Advisor Shares Pure Cannabis ETF (YOLO), which has seen their shares smoked, down 48%.

So is passive investing dead? ?? Unlikely. But investors might need to think longer term. Top Gun Buffett thinks putting money into low-cost ‘passive’ index funds is a good option for most long term investors. In 2017, Buffett famously won a US$1 million bet that passive funds would beat the returns of a group of actively managed hedge funds over a ten year period. A bet that the former hedge fund investor who lost wouldn’t do again. According to Bloomberg, just 17% of US large-cap stock pickers beat the S&P 500 over the 10 years through 2021. That might be just what Cardi B needs. Yolo.

We’re not financial advisors and Hatch news is for your information only. However dazzling our writing, none of it is a recommendation to invest in any of the companies or funds mentioned. If you want support before making any investment decisions, consider seeking financial advice from a licensed provider. We’ve done our best to ensure all information is current when we pushed ‘publish’ on this article. And of course, with investing, your money isn’t guaranteed to grow and there’s always a risk you might lose money.