Finance

Bitcoin soaring to $150,000 this year

Published

1 year ago

April 3, 2024

Business Finance News

What’s next for Bitcoin and the crypto space

Hedge fund manager Mark Yusko is predicting bitcoin will more than double this year to $150,000.

“Get off zero,” the Morgan Creek Capital Management CEO and chief investment officer told CNBC’s “Fast Money” this week.

Yusko thinks investors should have at least 1% to 3% allocated to bitcoin in their portfolios. “Bitcoin is the king. It is the dominant token. It is a better form of gold,” he said.

As of Thursday’s stock market close, bitcoin is up about 159% over the past year. It had surpassed the $73,000 level earlier in March, but was trading around $70,700 Thursday evening.

“The law of large numbers comes in. I think it can go up 10x from here easily over the next decade,” added Yusko.

He lists bitcoin exchange-traded funds, which were launched in January, as a major bullish driver for the cryptocurrency. Yusko expects the bitcoin halving to lead to a supply shock resulting in another round of major tailwinds for the flagship crypto.

The halving, which cuts the bitcoin mining reward in half to limit supply, is expected in late April.

“The big move happens post-halving,” said Yusko. “It starts to become more … parabolic toward the end of the year. And, historically about nine months after the halving, so sometime toward Thanksgiving, Christmas, we see the peak in price before the next bear market.”

Yusko’s firm also has exposure to crypto online trading platform Coinbase. “We think big things are in line for Coinbase,” he said.

Shares of Coinbase are up almost 321% over the past 12 months.

Disclosure: Yusko’s firms own bitcoin, ethereum, gold, Coinbase and Nvidia.

Finance

Stocks making the biggest moves midday: WOOF, TSLA, CRCL, LULU

Published

11 hours ago

June 6, 2025

Business Finance News

Finance

Swiss government proposes tough new capital rules in major blow to UBS

Published

13 hours ago

June 6, 2025

Business Finance News

A sign in German that reads “part of the UBS group” in Basel on May 5, 2025.

Fabrice Coffrini | AFP | Getty Images

The Swiss government on Friday proposed strict new capital rules that would require banking giant UBS to hold an additional $26 billion in core capital, following its 2023 takeover of stricken rival Credit Suisse.

The measures would also mean that UBS will need to fully capitalize its foreign units and carry out fewer share buybacks.

“The rise in the going-concern requirement needs to be met with up to USD 26 billion of CET1 capital, to allow the AT1 bond holdings to be reduced by around USD 8 billion,” the government said in a Friday statement, referring to UBS’ holding of Additional Tier 1 (AT1) bonds.

The Swiss National Bank said it supported the measures from the government as they will “significantly strengthen” UBS’ resilience.

“As well as reducing the likelihood of a large systemically important bank such as UBS getting into financial distress, this measure also increases a bank’s room for manoeuvre to stabilise itself in a crisis through its own efforts. This makes it less likely that UBS has to be bailed out by the government in the event of a crisis,” SNB said in a Friday statement.

‘Too big to fail’

UBS has been battling the specter of tighter capital rules since acquiring the country’s second-largest bank at a cut-price following years of strategic errors, mismanagement and scandals at Credit Suisse.

The shock demise of the banking giant also brought Swiss financial regulator FINMA under fire for its perceived scarce supervision of the bank and the ultimate timing of its intervention.

Swiss regulators argue that UBS must have stronger capital requirements to safeguard the national economy and financial system, given the bank’s balance topped $1.7 trillion in 2023, roughly double the projected Swiss economic output of last year. UBS insists it is not “too big to fail” and that the additional capital requirements — set to drain its cash liquidity — will impact the bank’s competitiveness.

At the heart of the standoff are pressing concerns over UBS’ ability to buffer any prospective losses at its foreign units, where it has, until now, had the duty to back 60% of capital with capital at the parent bank.

Higher capital requirements can whittle down a bank’s balance sheet and credit supply by bolstering a lender’s funding costs and choking off their willingness to lend — as well as waning their appetite for risk. For shareholders, of note will be the potential impact on discretionary funds available for distribution, including dividends, share buybacks and bonus payments.

“While winding down Credit Suisse’s legacy businesses should free up capital and reduce costs for UBS, much of these gains could be absorbed by stricter regulatory demands,” Johann Scholtz, senior equity analyst at Morningstar, said in a note preceding the FINMA announcement.

“Such measures may place UBS’s capital requirements well above those faced by rivals in the United States, putting pressure on returns and reducing prospects for narrowing its long-term valuation gap. Even its long-standing premium rating relative to the European banking sector has recently evaporated.”