Reef and Avalanche Partner to Usher in DeFi Mainstream Adoption amidst Ethereum's Lag and High fees

Reef and Avalanche Partner to Usher in DeFi Mainstream Adoption amidst Ethereum’s Lag and High fees

TipRanks

Let’s talk portfolio defense. After last week’s social flash mob market manipulation, that’s a topic that should not be ignored. Now, this is not to say that the markets are collapsing. After 2% losses to close out last week’s Friday session, this week’s trading kicked off with a positive tone, as the S&P 500 rose 1.5% and the Nasdaq climbed 2.5%. The underlying bullish factors – a more stable political scene, steadily progressing COVID vaccination programs – are still in play, even if they are not quite as strong as investors had hoped. While increased volatility could stay with us for a while, it’s time to consider defensive stocks. And that will bring us to dividends. By providing a steady income stream, no matter what the market conditions, a reliable dividend stock provides a pad for your investment portfolio when the share stop appreciating. With this in mind, we’ve used the TipRanks database to pull up three dividend stocks yielding 8%. That’s not all they offer, however. Each of these stocks has scored enough praise from the Street to earn a “Strong Buy” consensus rating. New Residential Investment (NRZ) We’ll start by looking into the REIT sector, real estate investment trusts. These companies have long been known for dividends that are both high-yield and reliable – as a result of company compliance with tax rules, that require REITs to return a certain percentage of profits directly to shareholders. NRZ, a mid-size company with a market cap of $3.9 billion, holds a diverse portfolio of residential mortgages, original loans, and mortgage loan servicing rights. The company is based in New York City. NRZ holds a $20 billion investment portfolio, which has yielded $3.4 billion in dividends since the company’s inception. The portfolio has proven resilient in the face of the corona crisis, and after a difficult first quarter last year, NRZ saw rising gains in Q2 and Q3. The third quarter, the last reported, showed GAAP income of $77 million, or 19 cents per share. While down year-over-year, this EPS was a strong turnaround from the 21-cent loss reported in the prior quarter. The rising income has put NRZ in a position to increase the dividend. The Q3 payment was 15 cents per common share; the Q4 dividend was bumped up to 20 cents per common share. At this rate, the dividend annualizes to 80 cents and yields an impressive 8.5%. In another move to return profits to investors, the company announced in November that it had approved $100 million in stock repurchases. BTIG analyst Eric Hagen is impressed with New Residential – especially by the company’s sound balance sheet and liquidity. “[We] like the opportunity to potentially build some capital through retained earnings while maintaining a competitive payout. We think the dividend increase highlights the strengthening liquidity position the company sees itself having right now… we expect NRZ has been able to release capital as it’s sourced roughly $1 billion of securitized debt for its MSR portfolio through two separate deals since September,” Hagen opined. In line with his comments, Hagen rates NRZ a Buy, and his $11 price target implies an upside of 17% for the year ahead. (To watch Hagen’s track record, click here) It’s not often that the analysts all agree on a stock, so when it does happen, take note. NRZ’s Strong Buy consensus rating is based on a unanimous 7 Buys. The stock’s $11.25 average price target suggests ~20% upside from the current share price of $9.44. (See NRZ stock analysis on TipRanks) Saratoga Investment Corporation (SAR) With the next stock, we move to the investment management sector. Saratoga specializes in mid-market debt, appreciation, and equity investments, and holds over $546 million in assets under management. Saratoga’s portfolio is wide ranging, and includes industrials, software, waste disposal, and home security, among others. Saratoga saw a slow – but steady – rebound from the corona crisis. The company’s revenues fell in 1Q20, and have been slowly increasing since. The fiscal Q3 report, released early in January, showed $14.3 million at the top line. In pre-tax adjusted terms, Saratoga’s net investment income of 50 cents per share beat the 47-cent forecast by 6%. They say that slow and steady wins the race, and Saratoga has shown investors a generally steady hand over the past year. The stock has rebounded 163% from its post-corona crash low last March. And the dividend, which the company cut back in CYQ2, has been raised twice since then. The current dividend, at 42 cents per common share, was declared last month for payment on February 10. The annualized payment of $1.68 gives a yield of 8.1%. Analyst Mickey Schleien, of Ladenburg Thalmann, takes a bullish view of Saratoga, writing, “We believe SAR’s portfolio is relatively defensive with a focus on software, IT services, education services, and the CLO… SAR’s CLO continues to be current and performing, and the company is seeking to refinance/upsize it which we believe could provide upside to our forecast." The analyst continued, “Our model anticipates SAR employing cash and SBA debentures to fund net portfolio growth. We believe the Board will continue to increase the dividend considering the portfolio’s performance, the existence of undistributed taxable income, and the economic benefit of the Covid-19 vaccination program.” To this end, Schleien rates SAR a Buy along with a $25 price target. This figure implies a 20% upside from current levels. (To watch Schleien’s track record, click here) Wall Street’s analysts agree with Schleien on this stock – the 3 other reviews on record are Buys, and the analyst consensus rating is a Strong Buy. Saratoga’s shares are trading for $20.87, and carry an average price target of $25.50, suggesting an upside of 22% for the next 12 months. (See SAR stock analysis on TipRanks) Hercules Capital (HTGC) Last but not least is Hercules Capital, a venture capital company. Hercules offers financing support to small, early-stage client companies with scientific bent; Hercules’ clients are in life sciences, technology, and financial SaaS. Since getting started in 2003, Hercules has invested over $11 billion in more than 500 companies. The quality of Hercules’ portfolio is clear from the company’s recent performance. The stock has bounced back fully from the corona crisis of last winter, rebounding 140% from its low point reached last April. Earnings have also recovered; for the first nine months of 2020, HTGC posted net investment income of $115 million, or 11% higher than the same period of 2019. For dividend investors, the key point here is that the net investment income covered the distribution – in fact, it totaled 106% of the base distribution payout. The company was confident enough to boost the distribution with a 2-cent supplemental payment. The combined payout gives a $1.28 annualized payment per common share, and a yield of 8.7%. In another sign of confidence, Hercules completed a $100 million investment grade bond offering in November, raising capital for debt pay-downs, new investments, and corporate purposes. The bonds were offered in two tranches, each of $50 million, and the notes are due in March of 2026. Covering the stock for Piper Sandler, analyst Crispin Love sees plenty to love in HTGC. “We continue to believe that HTGC’s focus on fast growing technology and life sciences companies sets the company up well in the current environment. In addition, Hercules is not dependent on a COVID recovery as it does not have investments in “at-risk” sectors. Hercules also has a strong liquidity position, which should allow the company to act quickly when it finds attractive investment opportunities,” Love commented. All of the above convinced Love to rate HTGC an Outperform (i.e. Buy). In addition to the call, he set a $16 price target, suggesting 9% upside potential. (To watch Love’s track record, click here) Recent share appreciation has pushed Hercules’ stock right up to the average price target of $15.21, leaving just ~4% upside from the trading price of $14.67. Wall Street doesn’t seem to mind, however, as the analyst consensus rating is a unanimous Strong Buy, based on 6 recent Buy-side reviews. (See HTGC stock analysis on TipRanks) To find good ideas for dividend stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.

Reef Finance is listed on Huobi Global

Reef, the native token of Reef Finance, has been listed on the Huobi Global cryptocurrency exchange.

Reef Finance is the first cross-chain DeFi operating system that aims to make decentralized finance easy for investors by aggregating liquidity from both centralized and decentralized exchanges on a single platform and serving as a gateway to DeFi through liquidity and protocol aggregation, proprietary analytics, and multi-chain accessibility.

Built on Polkadot, Reef also provides personalized investment recommendations to users through its AI- and machine learning-driven smart analytics engine.

Huobi Global is a leading cryptocurrency exchange that lists more than 340 digital assets. Apart from spot and futures trading of crypto assets, Huobi also offers other services, such as crypto-fiat buy/sell, leveraged trading, etc.

Reef allows holders to participate in the platform governance by voting on various proposals. Users can stake their Reef tokens into the Reef pool and earn Reef Pool Token (RPT) based on their proportional stake in the pool. Reef will also be used in the yield distribution pay-out ratio for the different DeFi investment baskets available on Reef’s platform.

Huobi stated that users will be able to deposit Reef into their wallets from 11:00 (UTC+8) on Jan. 22, and trading will begin on Jan. 22 at 16:00 (UTC+8). Huobi will support REEF/BTC, REEF/USDT and REEF/ETH trading pairs. Reef withdrawal services from Huobi will begin on Jan. 23 at 11:00 (UTC+8).

To celebrate the listing, Huobi will conduct a variety of campaigns including AMAs, a 2.7-million Reef rewards deposit promotion, and a 2.7-million Reef rewards trading competition on the platform for Reef token holders. Those who stake Polkadot’s DOT, Reef and Huobi Token can mine up to 13.7 million in shared Reef rewards.

Reef was already listed on Binance in late December, making Reef Finance the first project from the Polkadot ecosystem to be listed on Binance. Recently, Reef has announced partnerships with various players of the DeFi economy, such as Plasm, Avalanche and bZx, to offer users a range of DeFi investment opportunities from a single platform.

Crypto Trader Lark Davis Unveils Latest Altcoin Investments, Says He’s Bullish on 4 New Coins

Crypto analyst and influencer Lark Davis is pulling back the curtain on the latest additions to his altcoin portfolio which he believes have the potential to make investors rich this altseason.

In a new video, Davis tells his 183,000 subscribers on YouTube that he’s invested in RAMP, a decentralized finance (DeFi) project that aims to free up billions of dollars of liquidity staked in protocols such as Polkadot (DOT), Ethereum (ETH), and Cardano (ADA).

“RAMP, however, allows you to unlock that value by letting you stake via their smart contracts and then letting you get their rUSD stablecoin in an equivalent amount to your staked capital. So you can then use these USD coins to go out and earn more yield. Basically, you’re going to be doubling, tripling, or potentially even many times more multiplying your gains that you could be getting otherwise.”

Davis highlights that RAMP is en route to fulfilling its biggest use case as its rUSD minter is scheduled to go live soon. Should RAMP attract users to their platform, Davis believes that the coin can surge beyond $1, representing an increase of over 185% from its current value of $0.35.

The next coin on the list is MahaDAO’s algorithmic stablecoin ARTH token.

“The supply of the coin is elastic. When the value of the ARTH coin is above its target price what happens is that the protocol will issue out new tokens in an attempt to dilute the supply and bring the price back down to its peg. When ARTH is trading under the target price, they then issue out bonds in the form of debt that are used to buy back and burn ARTH coins.”

Davis emphasizes ARTH’s huge upside potential as its market capitalization of $2 million is relatively small compared to other seigniorage coins like Empty Set Dollar’s (ESD) valuation of $560 million.

The third altcoin on Davis’ radar is Polkadot-based DeFi protocol and liquidity aggregator Reef Finance (REEF).

“They source liquidity from both centralized and decentralized exchanges to allow for you to get the best trading prices. They also offer smart lending, borrowing, staking, and mining via the Reef yield engine.”

Davis says REEF has managed to survive the “farm and dump” phase, which tends to occur in new DeFi projects. He now expects REEF to start performing well and breach its all-time high of $0.05 on the way to price discovery.

The fourth coin on Davis’ watchlist is Robonomics Network (XRT), a project designed to connect robots and place them under the control of blockchains such as Polkadot and Ethereum (ETH).

“Now the internet of things is becoming more and more real every day requiring more and more solutions to meet that reality that world is going to require deep and efficient communications. Robonomics is there to allow for robots as a service to become a thing by connecting all these different devices. It’s aiming to be at the forefront of bringing together blockchain and robotics.”

Davis predicts that robotics will become a massive trend in the coming years and Robonomics is positioning early to rise with the trend.

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Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any loses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.

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