The stock markets crash since the start of the year could mean that many investors are dissuaded from purchasing stocks. After all, further declines could be ahead depending on how the spread of coronavirus progresses.

Investors may, therefore, be considering the purchase of other assets such as gold and Bitcoin. They may exhibit lower correlation with the wider economy compared to stocks, which could mean they outperform them in the short run.

But, on a long-term basis, buying stocks now could be a much more profitable idea than purchasing Bitcoin or gold. It could boost your chances of enjoying financial freedom.

The uncertainty facing the world economy may cause demand among investors for gold and Bitcoin to rise. In golds case, it has a history as a defensive asset during challenging economic periods. This has contributed to its recent price rise, with it having traded at a seven-year high in the first quarter of 2020.

Although the price of Bitcoin has fallen sharply in recent months, some investors may feel that it offers lower correlation with the world economys outlook. They may, therefore, seek to diversify their portfolio through holding the virtual currency.

However, with gold now appearing to be priced at a high level and Bitcoin facing risks such as regulatory uncertainty, its limited size and competition from other cryptocurrencies, both assets could deliver disappointing returns in the long run.

The stock market could experience further falls in the short run, as investors price in the uncertainty facing the world economy. For long-term investors, however, this could represent a major buying opportunity. The stock market has always recovered from its lowest levels to produce strong recoveries. Even though the current bear market may prove to be somewhat prolonged due to the nature of the risks facing the world economy, a bull market is highly likely to follow.

Therefore, buying a diverse range of stocks today could prove to be a sound move. Purchasing stocks in a wide range of sectors may reduce your exposure to industries that could be hardest hit by the economys current challenges. This may enable you to maximise your returns in the likely recovery over the coming years.

Of course, buying stocks today may not feel like the right move for many investors. Newspaper headlines, restricted movement and fear among other investors may dissuade you from buying stocks and instead persuade you to purchase assets such as gold and Bitcoin.

However, now could be an excellent buying opportunity for long-term investors. The stock market has experienced high volatility and bear markets in the past. Investors who have bought stocks during such periods have generally recorded high returns in the subsequent years. At the present time, a stock market recovery may seem unlikely, but buying stocks now instead of other assets could be the best means of improving your financial future.

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The Japanese technology conglomerate SoftBank Group said it would lose a staggering $24 billion on investments made through its Vision Fund and bets on the co-working real estate company WeWork and satellite telecommunications company OneWeb.

Ultimately, the company expects the losses to help generate a $7 billion total loss for the technology giant for the year as its ambitious bets on early-stage companies come up short.

Over the past two years SoftBank and its founder Masayoshi Son have staked billions of (other peoples) dollars and its own fortunes on a vision that investments in machine learning technologies, robotics and next-generation telecommunications would reap hundreds of billions in financial rewards.

While that was the vision that Son and his team sold, the reality was multiple billions of dollars invested into real estate investment plays like WeWork, OpenDoor and Compass, and companies with direct-to-consumer merchandising plays like Brandless, pet supply businesses like Wag and the food delivery business DoorDash. Add the hotel chain Oyo to the mix and the investment selection from the Vision Fund looks even less visionary.

Over the past year, several of its investments ran aground. Though none of them imploded as spectacularly as WeWork whose valuation was slashed from more than $40 billion to around $8 billion many have struggled.

Brandless went bust earlier this year, and real estate investments in Compass along with investments in travel and tourism-related businesses like Oyo have suffered in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, which has shuttered economies around the world.

While many SoftBank and SoftBank Vision Fund bets were made into companies that have failed, seem to be on that path or perhaps may struggle in the economic downturn, not every wager is a clunker. The Vision Fund put lots of capital into Slack before it went public, and the company has caught a huge tailwind in the remote-work boom that were currently seeing in light of COVID-19.

Perhaps the most visionary of the SoftBank investments (and one not included in the Vision Fund), OneWeb, too, collapsed under the weight of its own capital-intensive vision for a network of satellites providing high-speed global telecommunications services. Zume, SoftBanks robotic pizza delivery business, also folded.

The only reason all of these gambles havent completely destroyed SoftBank is that the company still has a cash cow in its Alibaba stake and a relatively strong core business in telecommunications and semiconductor holdings.

The difference in income before income tax is, in addition to the above, mainly due to the expected recording of non-operating loss totaling approximately JPY 800 billion for fiscal 2019 on investments held outside of SoftBank Vision Fund, including The We Company (WeWork) and WorldVu Satellites Limited (OneWeb), the company said in a statement. This will be partially offset by the gain relating to the settlement of variable prepaid forward contract using Alibaba shares recorded in the first quarter of fiscal 2019 and the dilution gain from changes in equity interest in Alibaba recorded in the third quarter of fiscal 2019, as well as an expected year-on-year increase in income on equity method investments related to Alibaba.

Ultimately, it seems that Son was too enamored of the mythology hed created around himself as a maverick and a visionary. To the detriment of his companys outside shareholders and investors.

As Bloomberg noted in an op-ed earlier today:

Sons insistence that startups grow faster than their founders planned, and strong-arm them into taking more money than they might have wanted, has turned into a burden. And thats become a huge liability to investors in the Vision Fund and SoftBank, too.

By throwing cash around, dozens of startups became addicted to spending instead of building fiscal discipline into their business models. For years, it seemed like a sound strategy. By having more money than rivals, SoftBank-backed companies could win market share by offering bigger incentives, taking out more ads and luring the best talent.

Today, SoftBank has a major stake in sector leaders like Uber Technologies Inc., WeWork, Grab Holdings Inc. and Oyo. But climbing tonumber one doesnt mean being profitable.

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Health-care stocks are bouncing.

The S&P 500 health-care sector climbed more than 3% on Tuesday in a strong day for the broader market as investors embraced an improving forecast for the coronavirus outbreak. The moves pulled health-care stocks out of correction territory defined as a 10% drop below a recent peak with the group now just 8% away from its January top.

"You're definitely seeing a wave of support here. J&J got the earnings season off to a good start," Bill Baruch, president and founder of Blue Line Capital, told CNBC's "Trading Nation" on Tuesday.

Johnson & Johnson shares rose nearly 4.5% on Tuesday after the company rose its quarterly dividend and cut its 2020 outlook in its first-quarter earnings report.

To get a better sense of where health-care stocks might be headed, Baruch examined a chart of the Health Care Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLV), which tracks the group.

"You're seeing a very, very good chart setup" as the ETF moves through its 50- and 200-day moving averages, typically a constructive technical sign, Baruch said. "It's really chewed through a pocket of resistance between 90 and 95."

The XLV closed more than 3% higher Tuesday at $97.12.

"There's a few individual names I like, everything from Bristol-Myers to Amgen, but today, I'm going to focus on AbbVie because I think that the fundamentals there are a bit better than some of the others," Baruch said. "You're getting a 6% dividend. You're also avoiding the very high [price-to-earnings multiple]."

The "chart still has some work to do," however, Baruch said. But that's why he liked it.

"You can see a down trend line that it's moving through. There is a trend line that it broke down below previously," he said. "It still faces a 50-day moving average. So all in all, there is a lot of resistance between 81 and 85 in this name, and I think once it gets through there and the broader sector gets through there, this could be a leader to the upside."

AbbVie closed up nearly 4% at $82.13 on Tuesday.

Steve Chiavarone, a portfolio manager, equity strategist and vice president at Federated Hermes, said investors generally should opt for stock-picking rather than passive investing right now.

"You really want to be doing things more selectively with active management," he said. "I think that this crisis has, in a lot of ways, put pressure on weaker business models while also, the economy coming out of this, while we think it can be very strong, it is going to be different. There's going to be winners and losers."

In health care, the winners could be the companies that get us through this pandemic, Chiavarone said.

"There's over 70 vaccines that are under development, so, whichever companies come to the fore first are likely to benefit from that," he said. "More broadly, it's not about a vaccine. It's more about what we're going to do coming out of this crisis, and I think one of the things that we've recognized is that our health-care system was not prepared for this. And so, one of the things we expect that will happen going forward is [to] establish ... strategic reserves for key medical devices and key antiviral drugs, and we expect to see a kind of big buy ahead of that, or a big buying spree in those areas."

That could boost medical-device, pharmaceutical and biotechnology stocks "on a go-forward basis" as demand grows, Chiavarone said.

But picking individual names was still his preferred course of action for buyers.

"We think it really is a stock picker's environment, not just in health care but, quite frankly, across industries. You don't want to own everything right now. You want to be able to choose amongst those companies that are well positioned for the economy going forward and those that may be under some more pressure," Chiavarone said. "So, we would definitely err towards the side of individual stocks."

Baruch largely agreed.

"I think it's going to be a stock picker's game going forward," he said. "This is where you're going to see advisors and individual investors really kind of flourish."

The S&P health-care sector is up over 9.5% in April as of Tuesday's close.

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Mobile messaging startup Attentive continues to bring in new funding.

The startup raised a $40 million Series B last summer, followed by a $70 million Series C at the beginning of this year. Today its announcing that its extended the Series C by another $40 million, bringing the total round size to $110 million.

CEO Brian Long (who previously founded TapCommerce with his Attentive co-founder Andrew Jones andsold the company to Twitter) told me that the new funding closed just a week ago. He said the money comes from institutional investors who had wanted to participate in the Series C, but for whatever reason, the timing didnt work out.

Then, as the startup wanted to invest in new areas particularly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic Long reached out again. Once they saw Attentives numbers for the first quarter of 2020, the firms were willing to invest.

Apparently, the number of new customer sign-ups is only increasing, with Attentive now working with more than 1,000 businesses. Companies like Coach, Urban Outfitters, CB2, PacSun, Lulus and Jack in the Box use the platform to manage their mobile messaging, with tools around adding text message subscribers, creating engaging messages and tracking the results of those campaigns.

And while were at the beginning of whats likely to be a dramatic slowdown in advertising and marketing, Long suggested that even if businesses pull back on acquiring new customers, theyll still need to maintain a relationship with existing ones.

CRM is such a critical channel for companies email and text are the last thing you would shut down, he said.

Sequoia Capital Global Equities and Coatue are the new investors in the Series C. Sequoias venture fund already led (or co-led) the Series C and the Series B, but Long said he was interested in working with the firms crossover fund and with Coatue partly because they invest in public companies as well.

Not that he has immediate plans for Attentive to go public, but he said, It just creates optionality, so that there are fewer financial pressures regardless of the route the company takes.

Other investors in the Series C include IVP, Bain Capital Ventures, NextView Ventures, Eniac Ventures and High Alpha.

Attentives rapid growth is an indicator of how consumers are eager to find a more direct, personalized and efficient channel to interact with businesses, said Jeff Wang, managing partner at Sequoia Capital Global Equities, in a statement. Weve been impressed by how quickly Attentives business has scaled, its strong customer momentum, and the expertise of the team. We are thrilled to increase Sequoias partnership with Attentive through our Global Equities fund.

As for how Attentive is responding to COVID-19, the startup plans to create funds to help customers navigate the economic fallout. There will be more details released in the coming weeks, but Long said the idea is to launch funds focused on the e-commerce/retail, food/beverage and educational sectors, providing free access to Attentive tools and services to help those companies get recharged.

Long added that he hopes to grow Attentives headcount from 260 employees to more than 400 by the end of this year.

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For nearly two months, Wall Street has been taken for quite the roller-coaster ride.

Following an all-time closing high for the benchmark S&P 500 (SNPINDEX:^GSPC) on Feb. 19, it took just 17 trading sessions for the broad-based index to lose more than 20% of its value and fall into bear market territory. It also took a mere 22 trading sessions (about a month) to lose in excess of 30%. By comparison, previous bear markets have taken an average of 336 calendar days to reach losses of 30%.

Image source: Getty Images.

There's absolutely no question that investors have had their resolve tested like never before. Then again, it also may be a perfect time to be a buyer, assuming you have disposable income to spare amid the current unprecedented disruption in the labor market.

While the stock market offers no guarantees, the closest thing to a surefire idea over the long run has been to buy high-quality stocks during stock market corrections and bear markets. That's because every single correction and bear market in history has eventually been completely erased by a bull market.

Sometimes it takes just weeks for this to happen, whereas in other instances, such as following the Great Recession and dot-com bubble, it took years. But make no mistake about it: Organic earnings growth tends to push stock valuations higher over the long run. That's why long-term investors who stay the course tend to be so handsomely rewarded.

Thus, the question isn't really whether you should be a buyer during a bear market -- it's what stock(s) should you buy?

Over the past couple of weeks, I've offered up numerous investment ideas, including growth stocks, value stocks, high-yield income stocks, and even small-cap stocks that investors can buy in this bear market. But perhaps the single greatest investment opportunity right now is a company that's averaged a 20.3% annual return (yes, averaged) since 1965. For context, this means if you had invested $100 in 1965 with this company and held for the past 55 years, you'd have had more than $2.7 million by Dec. 31, 2019.

A jubilant Warren Buffett at his company's annual shareholder meeting. Image source: The Motley Fool.

This mystery company, which has outpaced the S&P 500's aggregate return, including dividends, by more than 2,724,000% since the end of 1964and has gained at least a double-digit percentage in 35 of the last 55 years, is none other than Warren Buffett's conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A)(NYSE:BRK.B).

Easily the most attractive thing about buying Berkshire Hathaway stock is that you're effectively making Warren Buffett your investment manager. Although Buffett has a team of investment managers, some of whom make purchases on their own, the Oracle of Omaha remains in charge of the lion's share of Berkshire's investment portfolio, which stood at almost $194 billion, as of this past weekend.

Buffett definitely brings what would today be viewed as a unique style of investing to the table. Rather than using fancy charting tools or throwing his weight around as an activist investor would, Buffett chooses to buy businesses with perceived-to-be competitive advantages and -- (here's the really important part) -- hangs onto them for a long period of time. Of Berkshire Hathaway's nine-largest holdings by market value, four have been held for at least 20 years (Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO), Wells Fargo, American Express, and Moody's). In fact, Berkshire Hathaway has such a low cost basis ($3.25) on Coca-Cola that Coke's aggregate annual dividend of $1.64 per share equates to a greater than 50% yield on cost.

This is a good time to point out that Buffett's portfolio leans heavily on cyclical business (i.e., those that do well when the U.S. or global economy are expanding). Although Coca-Cola isn't necessarily going to see a drop-off in consumption during a bear market, Buffett's favorite industry -- banking -- is certainly going to see less in the way of interest income and deposit/loan growth.

While that can be bad news during recessions, what's important to note is that the U.S. economy spends far more time expanding than it does contracting. This simple bet on the expansion of the U.S. and global economy is a big reason Buffett is so successful.

Image source: Getty Images.

Another measure of success is that Warren Buffett tends to place a lot of focus on dividend stocks. This isn't to say that Buffett goes out of his way to avoid companies that don't pay a dividend, so much as to point out that he traditionally buys into businesses that are time-tested and comfortable with the idea of sharing a percentage of their profits with shareholders. By my calculations, Berkshire Hathaway is on track to generate around $4.7 billion in dividend income in 2020. Considering Buffett's all-in cost basis of $110.3 billion for his company's 52-security investment portfolio, this works out to a greater than 4% yield on cost.

Furthermore, Berkshire Hathaway acts as an acquirer of businesses. With Buffett at the helm, Berkshire has acquired in the neighborhood of 60 businesses from a variety of sectors and industries, including well-known brands such as railroad company BNSF, insurer GEICO, and confectioner See's Candies. Many of these companies have grown significantly over time and added to Berkshire Hathaway's bottom line.

Though it's easy to overlook Berkshire Hathaway in favor of other high-flying growth stocks, there's probably not a company out there with a better track record over the past 55 years.

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This Stock Has Averaged a 20% Annual Return Since 1965 - The Motley Fool

Historically speaking, the best times to invest are when the market has crashed. That's certainly been the case this year, as the spread of COVID-19 has caused tens of thousands of deaths and ground the global economy to a halt in an effort to arrest the spread and prevent what would likely be a much bigger death toll.

In addition to the huge physical toll for people who have become ill and died from this deadly virus, the financial repercussions have been severe. Millions of people are out of work, and it's likely that it will take many months before the economy fully opens back up.

A lot of people will struggle to make ends meet during this period. And for those of us with the means to help, there has never been a better time to offer that help.

Image source: Getty Images.

At the same time, taking steps to protect yourownfinancial future is also important. We'll see more recessions, market crises, natural disasters, and infectious disease pandemics in the future. Part of how we can help do our part is by taking stepsnowto prepare. And that means investing in the best companies when they're trading at fire-sale prices.

If you're fortunate to have some spare cash you can invest today to help build up your nest egg for the future, three stocks worth considering areBank of N.T. Butterfield & Son(NYSE:NTB),CenturyLink Inc(NYSE:CTL), andNV5 Global(NASDAQ:NVEE). These are not risk-free investments but are quite strong, provide important services that people and businesses rely on, and are likely to emerge from the coronavirus recession in great shape.

The banking sector has taken it on the nose so far, with even some of the biggest, strongest banks in the world seeing their stocks down more than 30%. Part of this is worry that banks will fail en masse, again, like we saw in the last recession.

This is an unlikely outcome because banks are in much stronger shape this time around and without the major debt bubble -- like residential mortgages -- we experienced a decade ago.But it's also based on the likelihood that banks will struggle under the weight of near-zero interest rates cutting into their profits on loans, a sharp decline in lending activity as people and companies put off spending,andthe weight of defaults on existing loans.

Those are reasonable expectations in the short term, though the CARES act will result in some federally backed lending to small businesses, but the best banks should prove capable of riding out the downturn just fine.

Image source: Getty Images.

I think investor worry has many overlooking Butterfield. It's not a familiar name to many, but it's an established banking brand for well-to-do people and businesses in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and the Channel Islands off the coast of Europe.

It also has what could prove to be a big advantage in the current environment: Fee-based income. On a recent earnings call, management pointed out that fee-based earnings are outpacing net interest income growth following the Channel Islands banking acquisition last year. In a near-zero-rate environment, having a strong and growing fee-based income stream could prove invaluable.

With shares still down more than 50% (at this writing) from the 2020 high, Butterfield looks like an excellent business at a bargain price.

For years, CenturyLink has been a terrible investment, struggling under the weight of an old, declining business with little path forward. Even after the company merged with Level 3 Communications a couple of years ago, investors saw revenues continue to fall as the company pared back some unprofitable business, while the legacy copper-line telecom segment continued to decline.

Image source: Getty Images.

But more recently, revenues are starting to stabilize as the legacy business becomes less important and the enterprise business takes a bigger role. The company has also cut its debt, refinanced other debt to lower interest expenses, and cut more than $1 billion in operating expenses since the Level 3 merger.

Going forward, CenturyLink's long-term prospects look solid. It has a massive fiber network, a much-improved balance sheet and operating structure, and is built to profit from the shift to 5G in wireless communications. Fiber is critical to 5G, which requires more cells to build a network and will need large-scale fiber to connect those cells to one another.

CenturyLink will continue to deal with a legacy land-line business in decline, but the recent 36% decline in its share price is based almost entirely on fears that should prove short term. CenturyLink may not be the best business in telecom, but it's a solid business at a deep discount, considering the actual risks.

Shares of NV5 Global are down almost 40% from their 2020 high, and down more than half from the all-time high they hit late last summer. The company, which consults and provides engineering and project management for infrastructure construction and development, could certainly see business decline in 2020 as businesses and governments cut back on capital spending on big projects and focus their resources on helping combat -- and even just survive -- the COVID-19 crisis.

But even the COVID-19 pandemic has presented NV5 with some ways it can put its expertise to good work. The company has made many acquisitions over the past several years and built an internal infrastructure to support remote work, and its capabilities include being able to consult with companies to help them respond to the COVID-19 crisis.

Image source: Getty Images.

But the real potential for NV5 is the need for massive global investment in infrastructure in the years ahead. Between aging infrastructure in developed countries and the growth of the global middle class in emerging economies, it's going to take trillions of dollars in spending to build and rebuild enough infrastructure to support the modern world in the future, and this tiny company is built to be a big winner from that spending.

2020 could prove a bit painful, but instead of holding out to try and catch it at some potential future "bottom," NV5 is worth buying now, while shares are half-off their all-time high.

The weeks and months ahead are likely to bring much uncertainty. The COVID-19 pandemic is killing tens of thousands of people and affecting the lives of billions more. The bigger concern for many people in the interim will be living day to day, not how their portfolios will do over the next decade.

Nonetheless, it's still our individual responsibility to be balanced in our actions and make sure we're doing what we can to have financial security down the road, as well as taking care of ourselves, our families, and our communities in this moment.

If you're fortunate to have the resources to invest today, part of doing your part isto make sure you're financial future is secure.

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Got $1,000 to Invest? 3 Top Stocks to Buy Right Now - The Motley Fool

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All it took for the NBA to finally convince a five-star prospect to play in the G League instead of picking college -- or overseas -- basketball was upending the very nature of the G League itself.

That and a $500,000 salary guarantee, of course. Show Jalen Green that money, yessir.

Congratulations to the young Mr. Green, a joyous talent who -- and this opinion is from multiple NBA evaluators I spoke with this week -- was a lottery lock for 2021 no matter if he played in the G League, the NCAA, the NBL of Australia or never touched a basketball for the next 16 months.

Green is special, and because he's special, he has rare opportunities and leverage. In the eyes of many who are paid to evaluate basketball talent, he's the best prospect in 2020's class. While the G League will be offering contracts and roster spots to more 18-year-olds soon, it will not be offering half a million dollars -- not even close -- to those whose abilities are a stage or two away from Green's. It's true he just became the first elite basketball prospect in history to bypass college hoops in favor of the NBA's constantly changing developmental organization, but his choiceis not a profound threat to the NCAA or college basketball.

Green's decision to do this, coupled with the expectation that five-star forward Isaiah Todd will follow him (Todd balked on his Michigan pledge earlier this week), has some already mocking the NCAA for having lost the war with the NBA. That's a flawed presupposition. It's true this is a crucial moment for the NCAA to stop living in the 1960s, to step up and deliver robust name, image and likeness legislation -- effective starting in 2021 -- that will sweeten the college experience and give players more empirical rights they've long deserved.

And that process is expected to take its next official steps in the coming weeks.

But the NBA is not at war with the NCAA.

As much as anything else, the NBA and the G League are doing this to fight off other professional leagues. And the bigger question tied to Thursday's big news: What's Adam Silver overseeing here and why is he doing this? Is this even worth it? Those questions are being asked by NBA general managers and scouts right now. This isn't just a $500,000 investment in one player. When you look at the infrastructure being put into this experiment -- the academy-type setup, the accommodations that will have to be made, the financial investment in paying for college scholarships down the road -- it's millions and millions of dollars.

For a league now tightening its belt because of lost revenue due to COVID-19 restrictions.

And almost nobody even watches the G League.

What's the return on investment? College basketball -- an entity that makes more than $1 billion off its games -- has for decades afforded NBA scouts and decision-makers the best stage and ideal conditions to track talent before the on-ramp every spring that is the pre-draft process. Now the NBA's deciding that persuading X-number of top high school prospects to play an abbreviated schedule (much shorter than a college season) against varied competition (are these guys going to play actual G League teams some of the time, and if so, how are those other players going to feel about the paycheck differential to some teenagers who haven't proven a thing yet?) is all worth the time, money and management.

Which is to say nothing of how this plan is put into place in the coming season; we're all waiting to see what the coronavirus pandemic does to sports everywhere. The G League firing up the buses falls very, very far down that list.

The G League's strategy is also a potential escape-hatch to a bigger story: going from high school to the NBA might not be coming soon after all.

ESPN'sAdrian Wojnarowski reportsthere is no pending amendment to the collective bargaining agreement that is going to allow the NBA's age minimum to reduce from 19 to 18. The Players Association is fighting that because there is no shortage of vets in the league who have no interest in being booted off a roster, and potentially out of the NBA forever, a year ahead of time. The NBA created this problem. Now it's making its first inspired effort to fix what it broke to begin with.

So yes, most of what we're discussing here has fallen on the shoulders of the NBA, not the NCAA, which has never thwarted one person from turning pro at 18 if they so desired. This is a battle the NBA put upon itself.

It'd be dumb to say or even suggest that the Green news is good for college basketball. Obviously it's not. The sport would be better off having him, and we have the past 15 years worth of one-and-done talent to prove that. But this is not an arrow to the heart of the sport, and any college hoops doomsdayism commentary you see or read is lazy. Alumni bases are in the tens of millions: fans are going to root for their schools and be obsessed with filling out a bracket every time there's an NCAA Tournament. That's never going away.

Beyond that, let's look at the talent pool and actually bring facts into this discussion.

There are nearly 90 schools attached to the major seven conferences (AAC, ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC) alone. Let's say the G League really taps into something big here and can afford to successfully lure 10-12 out of the top 25 elite/five-star guys in a year to bypass college basketball. The age minimum stays at 19 and this is now the most lucrative option. OK.

Guess what? There are still going to be lottery picks and five-star players emerging from college! And there are still going to be star players who evolve over two, three and four years. The "preps-to-pros" era happened from 1995-2005, when going straight to the NBA out of high school was allowed and eventually got messy. If we return to a facsimile of that, I promise you college basketball will still be a major American sport.

Here's an off-the-cuff list of notable college stars in that '95-05 era, most whom played at least two years: Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh, Jay Williams, Paul Pierce, Vince Carter, Allen Iverson, Marcus Camby, Elton Brand, Chris Paul, Ron Mercer, Chauncey Billups, Lamar Odom, Baron Davis, Ron Artest, Jamal Crawford, Mike Miller, Zach Randolph, Luol Deng.

I can already hear the counterargument. But if those players came up and played in 2020 and had the chance Green has, they wouldn't have gone to college to begin with. That might be true of some, but not necessarily of all, because of where they were ranked coming out of high school. But, fine, take all of those players, the biggest names and flashiest of guys, and say college basketball would have never gotten them.

Lookie here, I've got another two dozen players -- from one decade alone -- who still would have played in college and ultimately became stars. All of these men were All-Americans and/or lottery picks, most of them made the Final Four at minimum, most of them at least three-year guys: Shane Battier, Joe Johnson, Mateen Cleaves, Emeka Okafor, Ray Allen, Tim Duncan, Antawn Jamison, Caron Butler, Kenyon Martin, Jason Richardson, Juan Dixon, Dwyane Wade, T.J. Ford, Kyle Korver, Jameer Nelson, Andrew Bogut, J.J. Redick, Adam Morrison, Tyler Hansbrough, Brandon Roy, Andre Iguodala.

There are No. 1 picks and national players of the year in there. That's what college basketball looks like when elite high school players are allowed an easily accessible chute to a pro career.

Then you have the Ja Morants, Jarrett Culvers and Obi Toppins: top-five-pick talents who were not even rated coming out of high school. Morant's a borderline NBA superstar and he played in a town offewer than 20,000 people. Projected 2020 lottery picks Isaac Okoro, Saddiq Bey, Aaron Nesmith and Tyrese Haliburton would have not come close to being under consideration for this G League arrangement coming out of high school. Neither would have projected first-round picks Jahmi'us Ramsey, Daniel Oturu, Robert Woodard, Zeke Nnaji and Devin Vassell.These college basketball success stories will never stop happening.

What's more,there are already top-five players opting for college in spite of being offered the G League opportunity. This has never been an either/or proposition. Enough with the doomsdayism. College basketball is going to be fine. It's undera bigger threat from upperclassmen who have almost no chance of being drafted opting to leave for good anyway. That can undercut the sport's overall appeal just as much, if not more than, missing out on guys who'll never get seen in a college uniform to begin with.

I ask: is this worth all the effort and investment for the NBA and the G League? It's going to be an interesting next 18 months, and because of what the coronavirus has wrought, the landscape of basketball in America has never been this intriguing or uncertain.

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The G League will soon find out if investing millions of dollars in high school prospects is worth the effort - CBS Sports

Can I get a Roll Tide? Photo courtesy of University Fancards.

Game on, Birmingham! University Fancards, a local fintech company, recently raised over $4 million in a Series A investment round. We chatted with the executive vice president of operations Greg Boggs to see what this means for the company and Birmingham as a whole.

You might be more familiar with University Fancards than you realize. The prepaid, reloadable cards feature your favorite team and are found in national chains like Walmart and Target.

Obviously everyone should choose the Alabama Crimson Tide, because were the best, but there are tons of teams you can pick from the Big 12 to the SEC. With the new funds and growing business, theres a good chance more teams will be added.

According to Greg, the funds will be used for marketing, product enhancements, adding schools and growing their team. That means there could be more hiring here in Birmingham.

There are also several customer-focused initiatives, like our rewards program, that weve been holding back on until funding. Those will be getting major upgrades that cardholders will be really excited about.

Why should you care so much about FanDatathe companys database? If youre an investor, its a pretty important resource.

FanData gives us a chance to see where fanbases like to spend money using data aggregation. Athletic Departments are intrigued, because they always want more information on how they can target new sponsors and offer value to their fanbase.,

Investors see FanData as a key driver of revenue generation for us as we continue to grow our cardholder base and focus on ROI.

Just like Bham Nows small business guide, their database was built in-house. University Fancards faced over 120 rejections from investorswhy? As the team continued to meet, the investors would always bring up data and the possibilities of building out a platform.

Ill never forget the team meeting where FanData was born. We had just been rejected by a big-time investor and when we sat down with the team we asked everyone What are we missing?

Every single employees answer was data. Whats really awesome is that we built our platform 100% in-house, meaning everyone had to learn new things and contribute to the platform.

Founded in 2015, its obvious University Fancards is not just growing locally, but also on a national level. Now, after a successful round of investments next steps are being put in place.

Internally, our biggest growth goal is all about how we can automate a large portion of our processes so we can be as efficient as possible as we scale the company going forward.

The company isnt just seeing growth internally, though. The team is noticing consumer habits and making adjustments for further customer accessibility.

On the tech side, weve seen many more of our cardholders utilize their Fancard in their Apple Wallet with Apple Pay, and our cards will be available in Google Pay soon for additional safer, contactless payments.

Plus, the ability for cardholders to add sub-cards to their accounts for their family and friends has been a major growth driver, and we expect that to continue.

What are University Fancards three goals for the next year?

As for adding to our team, we plan to hire at least a couple of new faces later this summer, but were always keeping an eye out for talented individuals who can enhance our company culture and bring a unique skill set to the table.

If youre interested in working for the team, check out more info here.

COVID-19 is officially declared the biggest party crasher, but were happy to see local businesses growing under the circumstances

We love being a part of the Birmingham community because we think it has such an entrepreneurial spirit.

Obviously, in light of this COVID-19 pandemic, many of Birminghams businesses have taken a hit, but we know that this is a strong community as well. We cant wait to see how so many of these fantastic firms and people bounce back even stronger on the other side of this.

With the local companys growth and many like it, Birmingham is aimed at becoming something bigger than we may realize. Not to worry, because no matter how much are city grows, local companies understand who helped them get there.

I think Birmingham is prime for Fintech growth. If you look at companies like Immediate, who just raised a round, Prepaid Technologies and what Stephen Faust has been able to accomplish.

Most people dont know this, but before Bill Smith started Shipt, he sold a prepaid Fintech based in Birmingham. Even as we grow, its very unlikely that we will have to hire outside of Birmingham, as there is plenty of technology, banking and financial talent already here.

See more here:
Local fintech company raises over $4 million in investmentswhat's next for the team - Bham Now

Reits, Real estate investment trust concept, cube wooden block with alphabet combine the word Reit... [+] on dark black background.

I know theres not much room for trust these days. I know the world feels like its been turned upside down.

I know theres not much that seems stable right now, especially after Sundays announcement that the White House is recommending social distancing measures through the end of April.

For many, that means lack of income for an entire month on top of two or three weeks of joblessness. And that automatically means less money going into an already hurting economy.

Businesses are shuttered perhaps for good. And even those still open with the exception of grocery and drug stores are still bleeding money overall.

Its an unprecedented situation, as we keep hearing. And so we have unprecedented issues to deal with.

But that doesnt mean we cant deal with them. That doesnt mean there wont be business survivors out of this.

The way Im crunching the numbers which is each and every way possible I believe that real estate investment trusts will be among those business survivors.

I believe that so much, Im willing to put my own money into them even now.

Dont Jump Right In. Consider Carefully First.

Before you jump into the markets to buy up every REIT, please dont get me wrong: Im not saying every REIT will survive.

To be clear, some most definitely will not.

Right now, the entire mall sector isnt looking good, Ill admit. And there are a few other areas that are shaky at best.

But as an overall sector, REITs provide about as good of a long-term protection/profit combination as possible. Subject expert Nareit explains:

REITs are total return investments. They typically provide high dividends plus the potential for moderate, long-term capital appreciation. Long-term total returns of REIT stocks tend to be similar to those of value stocks and more than the returns of lower-risk bonds.

As it goes on to note, there are five major reasons to invest in such investments:

That last one is especially important, since it more often than not means REITs have low correlation with their fellow stocks as well as bonds.

Meanwhile, here are some further insights about them from iREITinvestor.com:

Concerning liquidity There are 200+ REITs traded on U.S. stock exchanges with a combined equity market capitalization of more than $1 trillion.

Concerning transparency REITs provide added visibility into their finances and operations.

And concerning performance

REITs track record of delivering reliable, growing dividends, as well as a long-term capital appreciation through stock price increases, has historically provided investors with total returns that are competitive with those of other stocks and higher than most fixed-income investments.

As for their much-hailed dividends, I saved that for last for a reason. Because its only fair to point out that everything listed above is pre-coronavirus information. It was published last year or earlier.

However, that doesnt make it inaccurate.

The Short and Long of the REIT Situation

For the last few weeks, REITs have been cutting or completely suspending their dividends hardly attractive actions considering how thats one of their claims to fame.

Nobodys ignoring that fact. If anything, the entire real estate industry is fixated on it, including The Real Deal, which wrote last week:

while REITs may already be cutting dividends and paying out more in stock than investors may like, experts said it would be unlikely for REITs to all together ditch their designation a process called de-REITing in an effort to keep cash on hand to run operations.

Instead, theyre taking unprecedented steps to survive during unprecedented times.

Moreover, on March 27, Sarah Borchersen-Keto wrote this for Nareit: Strong Pre-Crisis Real Estate Fundamentals Will Help Sector Navigate Current Volatility. The piece involved an interview with CBREs Head of Occupier Research, Americas, Julie Whelan, including this segment:

Fundamentals in the real estate sector were strong heading into the crisis, Whelan observed, as she pointed to solid occupancy levels and a disciplined approach to construction. All of that has set us up to weather the storm that were in quite well, she said.

So the roiling markets aside, we expect this time ultimately wont be different. REITs are still a worthwhile holding.

Its just that also not one bit different from the norm we dont want to go into these investments blindly. We dont want to go into any investment blindly.

As I wrote earlier in this article, not every REIT will survive this crisis. Just like not every REIT or bank or other business survived the last one.

So keep your head on straight. Dont fall for price alone. Dont fall for yield alone.

Fall for fundamentals instead. Which companies have it? Which companies dont.

There are no guarantees in life. But the more have-its you put in your portfolio together today, the more of a portfolio youll have when this coronavirus crisis is past.

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Put Your Trust in Real Estate Investment Trusts - Forbes