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Cybersecurity: Fighting a Threat That Causes $450B of Damage Each Year

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Cybersecurity: Fighting a Threat That Causes $450B of Damage Each Year

Cybersecurity: Fighting a Threat That Causes $450B of Damage Each Year

With recent high profile hacks of companies such as Uber, Equifax, and HBO, it’s safe to say that cybersecurity is already top of mind for many of the world’s biggest companies.

However, as billions of more devices get connected to the internet every year – including many that are not properly secured – this cybercrime threat is evolving quickly, and the stakes are rising as well. Experts estimate that cybercrime caused $450 billion of damage to the economy in 2016, and that number is expected to increase to $6 trillion by 2021.

Today’s infographic, which comes to us from Evolve ETFs, covers the growing threat of cybercrime along with the associated boom in global cybersecurity spending.

Situation: Code Red

The potential impact of a large-scale cyber attack is bigger than ever, and today cybersecurity is a number one concern for businesses, governments, and individuals.

Since 2013, over nine billion records have been lost or stolen globally, and nearly two billion of those were breached in the first half of 2017 alone.

With 80% of the value of Fortune 500 firms stemming from intellectual property (IP) and other intangibles, this means that the digitization of assets comes with massive risks. According to a joint report by Lloyd’s and Cyence, a single large-scale attack could cause up to $53 billion in damages, which is comparable to the size of a natural disaster.

The potential firepower behind today’s cyber threats are enough even to catch the attention of top defense officials. In a survey of 352 national security leaders, the greatest threat facing the United States is not terrorism (26.3%) – it’s actually cyberwarfare (45.1%).

Fighting Cybercrime

Businesses are more focused than ever on protecting themselves and their data from increasingly advanced and complex threats.

In a recent survey by Marsh LLC and Microsoft, of the many global companies that are subject to new privacy rules in Europe, 78% of senior executives are planning to increase spending on cyber risk management in the next 12 months.

Reducing the cost of security breaches by only 10% can save global enterprises $17 billion annually.

– Morgan Stanley

As a result, the cybersecurity sector continues to be one that is on the rise. Spending is increasing particularly in four key areas: security analytics (SIEM), threat intelligence, mobile security, and cloud security – and global cybersecurity spending is expected to grow at a 9.5% CAGR to hit $182 billion in 2021.

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Markets

Charted: What are Retail Investors Interested in Buying in 2023?

What key themes and strategies are retail investors looking at for the rest of 2023? Preview: AI is a popular choice.

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A cropped bar chart showing the various options retail investors picked as part of their strategy for the second half of 2023.

Charted: Retail Investors’ Top Picks for 2023

U.S. retail investors, enticed by a brief pause in the interest rate cycle, came roaring back in the early summer. But what are their investment priorities for the second half of 2023?

We visualized the data from Public’s 2023 Retail Investor Report, which surveyed 1,005 retail investors on their platform, asking “which investment strategy or themes are you interested in as part of your overall investment strategy?”

Survey respondents ticked all the options that applied to them, thus their response percentages do not sum to 100%.

Where Are Retail Investors Putting Their Money?

By far the most popular strategy for retail investors is dividend investing with 50% of the respondents selecting it as something they’re interested in.

Dividends can help supplement incomes and come with tax benefits (especially for lower income investors or if the dividend is paid out into a tax-deferred account), and can be a popular choice during more inflationary times.

Investment StrategyPercent of Respondents
Dividend Investing50%
Artificial Intelligence36%
Total Stock Market Index36%
Renewable Energy33%
Big Tech31%
Treasuries (T-Bills)31%
Electric Vehicles 27%
Large Cap26%
Small Cap24%
Emerging Markets23%
Real Estate23%
Gold & Precious Metals23%
Mid Cap19%
Inflation Protection13%
Commodities12%

Meanwhile, the hype around AI hasn’t faded, with 36% of the respondents saying they’d be interested in investing in the theme—including juggernaut chipmaker Nvidia. This is tied for second place with Total Stock Market Index investing.

Treasury Bills (30%) represent the safety anchoring of the portfolio but the ongoing climate crisis is also on investors’ minds with Renewable Energy (33%) and EVs (27%) scoring fairly high on the interest list.

Commodities and Inflation-Protection stocks on the other hand have fallen out of favor.

Come on Barbie, Let’s Go Party…

Another interesting takeaway pulled from the survey is how conversations about prevailing companies—or the buzz around them—are influencing trades. The platform found that public investors in Mattel increased 6.6 times after the success of the ‘Barbie’ movie.

Bud Light also saw a 1.5x increase in retail investors, despite receiving negative attention from their fans after the company did a beer promotion campaign with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

Given the origin story of a large chunk of American retail investors revolves around GameStop and AMC, these insights aren’t new, but they do reveal a persisting trend.

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