8. 30,000 Products

An ETN is like an ETF, but a debt instrument, instead of an equity instrument. For example, the Alerian Master Limited Partnership (MLP) index fund is an ETN (ALN). The underlying assets are pipeline companies owned through partnerships, but the ETN passes on the income of the underlying holdings. MLPs are notorious for requiring K-1 tax reporting in every state in which there is a partnership, and most cross numerous states. Through this structure there are conveniently no K-1 s, because nothing is truly owned in the form of equity; the investment is, in effect, loaned money.

In probability theory, the law of large numbers (LLN) is a theorem that describes the result of performing the same experiment a large number of times. According to the law, the average of the results obtained from a large number of trials should be close to the expected value, and will tend to become closer as more trials are performed. The LLN is important because it guarantees stable long-term results for the averages of some random events. For example, while a casino may lose money in a single spin of the roulette wheel, its earnings will tend toward a predictable percentage over a large number of spins. Any winning streak by a player will eventually be overcome by the parameters of the game. It is important to remember that the law only applies (as the name indicates) when a large number of observations are considered. There is no principle that a small number of observations will coincide with the expected value or that a streak of one value will immediately be “balanced” by the others (e.g., gambler’s fallacy).

http://​www.​businessinsider.​com/​rise-and-fall-of-united-east-india-2013-11

Planes, Alex, “A History of Ridiculously Big Companies: Apple takes its place in the pantheon of capitalism”, Aug 22, 2012, motleyfool.​com

The crisis set off a chain of events related to the controversy over the colonial tea market. The Dutch East India Company was one of the firms that suffered the hardest hits in the crisis. Failing to pay or renew its loan from the Bank of England, the firm sought to sell its 18 million pounds of tea from its British warehouses to the American colonies. Back then, the firm had to market its tea to the colonies through middlemen, so the high price made its tea unfavorable compared to the tea that was smuggled in or was produced locally in the colonies. In May 1773, however, the Parliament imposed a three pence tax for each pound of tea sold and allowed the firm for the first time to sell directly through its own agents. The Tea Act reduced the tea price and solidified the East India Company’s monopoly over the local tea business in the colonial tea market. Furious about how British government and the East India Company controlled the colonial tea trade, citizens in Charleston, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston rejected the imported tea, and these protests eventually led to the Boston Tea Party in 1773.

Singh, J. “Top 8 Qualities of an Ideal Money Material” http://​www.​economicsdiscuss​ion.​net/​money/​top-8-qualities-of-an-ideal-money-material/​609

Moore’s law is named after Intel cofounder Gordon Moore. He observed in 1965 that transistors were shrinking so fast that every year twice as many could fit onto a chip, and in 1975 adjusted the pace to a doubling every two years.

Alexandre, Ana, “New Study Says 80 Percent of ICOs Conducted in 2017 Were Scams”, Cointelegraph: The Future of Money (www.​cointelegraph.​com), July 13, 2018.