With heightened stock market volatility, more investors are looking for ways to hedge their portfolios or find some way to outperform the broader indices. Therefore, I thought it would be a good idea to interview Ananda Aisola, the co-founder of Composer, a new investment platform.

For 13 years I worked in the equities department at two major investment banks. And since 2001, I’ve lived in San Francisco, the tech startup capital of the world. Hence, whenever there is an equities-related startup, I’m intrigued!

Equities account for roughly 30 percent of my net worth. Of the 30 percent, roughly 75 percent is invested in index funds. The remaining 25 percent is invested mostly in individual stocks.

First, a brief overview of Composer, a Financial Samurai sponsor. We’ll then go through a Q&A with its co-founder, and then I’ll end with Composer’s equity outlook over the next 12-24 months.

The Fundrise Innovation Fund is a new fund investing in mid-to-late-stage private tech companies. More broadly, the fund intends to focus on companies within specific sectors that have strong macro tailwinds, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. The goal is to invest in long-term trends that expand over the next several decades.

Since 2010, Fundrise has focused on disrupting the commercial real estate market. Now they see an opportunity to disrupt the venture capital market.

I was surprised when I first heard Fundrise was launching a venture capital fund. My first thought was this didn’t seem like a logical move. After all, Fundrise’s expertise lies in real estate, especially investing in Sunbelt single-family and multi-family properties.

David Packard, of the computer company Hewlett-Packard, once said, “More companies die from indigestion than starvation.” His idea being that if a company acquires too large of a company or too many companies, the acquiring company’s management could lose its focus. Too many integration issues and moving parts could cause problems.

But after listening to Ben Miller describe his vision (Apple podcast) and touching base with the Fundrise team, I’m more enthusiastic about where the Fundrise Innovation Fund will go. After all, Fundrise is starting this new tech fund initiative from the ground up.

Are you aware of the risks you take online? Nearly half the U.S. population was impacted by identity fraud and financial fraud in 2020, responsible for $56B in losses. And the truth is, you’ve never been a bigger target.

Technology is woven into our lives. From remote work to shopping to banking, we can send/receive money and share sensitive information at the touch of a button. But behind the convenient reality of the digital age lurks a dark underbelly of hackers and sophisticated con artists. 

Everyone wants to protect their children, families, and financial assets from scammers. Unfortunately, modern-day con artists have grown to become more advanced. With various types of manipulation style phishing and brute force password attacks, hackers don’t need much to steal your data, access your online accounts, and wipe out your finances.

Avoiding financial fraud isn’t easy, but it’s achievable. It’s time to get familiar with what you’re up against. Read on to find out how to avoid financial fraud and protect your investments.

The following is a guest post from Aura, a leading identity and financial fraud protection company.

Looking ahead, the investing landscape seems more difficult, especially after three robust years of equity returns. More capital preservation strategies should be considered. At the same time, corporate earnings are still growing. Further, the long-term trend for stocks is up and to the right.

What is a person who doesn’t want to actively manage their money, but who also wants to hedge against downside risk to do? Find an investing platform that does these things.

In 2021, I was introduced to Titan Global Capital Management (Titan) by an old VC friend of mine, Mark G. He was an early investor in Personal Capital and acted as their CMO for several years. Mark and I actually overlapped at Personal Capital for a couple of years while I did some consulting.

Given Titan was founded only three years earlier in February 2018, I decided to see how they’d do for another year before sharing their work. I’m happy to say they’ve grown tremendously. Further, I think the timing is right to talk about their product now as the markets get more volatile.

Titan is an investment platform bringing premier, active investment management to everyone. Here’s Titan sharing their value proposition in their own words.