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Chris Versace

Chris Versace

Chris Versace, the "Thematic Investor," is the director of research at Think 20/20, an independent equity research and corporate access firm located in the Washington, D.C. area. Before Think 20/20, Mr. Versace was the portfolio manager of Agile Capital Management (ACM), a thematically driven alternative investment fund. The groundwork for ACM was laid during Mr. Versace’s tenure as senior vice president of equity research at Friedman Billings Ramsey, where he produced award-winning, differentiated research coverage using an ecosystem perspective of the mobile phone industry and enabling component technologies across various material technologies, including RF semiconductors (RFID, GPS), LEDs and display technologies. During his tenure at FBR, Mr. Versace received honorable mentions in Institutional Investor annual research analyst rankings, was a five-star analyst by Zacks Investment Services and a four-star analyst ranked by Star Mine. Mr. Versace was also an analyst at Donaldson Lufkin Jenrette, as well as Salomon Brothers. Mr. Versace is currently a weekly contributor to The Washington Times. He has been quoted extensively in the Wall Street Journal, Investors Business Daily, The Street.com, USA Today and other publications. He has participated in numerous industry panels, including the Northern Virginia Tech Council, We Media and others, and has appeared on Fox Business, CNBC, CNBC Europe, CNNfn and "America's Morning News." Mr. Versace earned bachelor's degrees in economics and mathematics at Fairfield University before earnings an master of business administration degree in Finance at Fordham University.

Articles by Chris Versace

VERSACE: Recognizing Debt Ceiling Day

As the stock market jumped and skidded this week amid a sea of slowing economic data and corporate earnings that was at best mixed, another first for our country was had.

May 19, 2011

VERSACE: Economic indices still point south

The stock market started off strong on Monday upon the news of Osama bin Laden's death at the hands of U.S. forces, but lost steam late in the day as all three major market indices finished in the red.

May 5, 2011

VERSACE: Indulge in market’s guilty pleasures

This past week, the stock market passed a new hurdle. That's right, after Wednesday's first-ever news conference by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, the Nasdaq Composite Index rallied to close at a 10-year high.

April 28, 2011

VERSACE: Wall Street listens for earnings beat rate

As tends to be the case during corporate earnings season, the stock market was volatile but all three major indexes are on track to finish the shortened trading week higher than it ended last week. While corporate earnings have been as strong as I suspected, I have to acknowledge that I am more than a tad surprised by the market strength given Standard & Poor's revised long-term credit rating outlook for the U.S. from "stable" to "negative."

April 21, 2011

VERSACE: Inflation on rise while wages stay put

This past week could be characterized as a relatively quiet one in the market — trading volumes were somewhat light, new economic data flow was modest and corporate earnings news was light in advance of next week, which kicks off March 2010 earnings results. Despite that, two key issues came to the forefront — inflation and the risk of a federal government shutdown.

April 7, 2011

VERSACE: Look for uptick in mergers, buyouts

As someone who got started in the investing business by looking at cyclical stocks and later migrated into technology, the predictable pattern of strong growth, followed by slower growth as an industry matures, then eventual consolidation is not a surprise.

March 31, 2011

VERSACE: Getting ahead in the IPO market

Several columns ago, I touched on the improving health of the initial public offering (IPO) market, but noted that there were few ways for individual investors to participate early on. One of those ways would be to participate in a pre-IPO fund. I recently had an opportunity to speak with Tim Keating, founder of Keating Capital, a business development company that makes pre-IPO investments and offers individuals the opportunity to participate in those investments.

March 24, 2011

VERSACE: Be alert for market pullback to invest

There has been much talk during the past couple of the days about the stock market and the two-year anniversary of the strong upward move in the indexes, more commonly referred to as a "bull market."

March 10, 2011

VERSACE: Watching insiders for signs

While there are many credible management teams that are not only stewards of their companies and consistent communicators with investors in good times as well as bad, there are also ones that are not.

March 3, 2011

VERSACE: Aggregating product reviews, ratings

How can consumers — cash-strapped or otherwise — shop smarter, given the backdrop of connected devices (smart phones, tablets, Internet-enabled TVs and so on)?

February 24, 2011

VERSACE: Inflation signs are rising

This week saw several developments on the inflation front. Producer prices in the U.S. climbed during January to their highest level in more than two years, as U.S. wholesale prices jumped 0.8 percent in January fueled by rising gasoline costs. Core producer prices, which exclude the volatile food and energy categories, rose 0.5 percent, marking the largest increase since October 2008.

February 17, 2011

VERSACE: IPO market starts to pep up again

Rather than focus on the turmoil in Egypt or rehash a number of economic statistics that imply the economic recovery remains a steady but slow one characterized by modest job growth near term, let's instead look at another facet of the market. No, I'm not talking about mergers and acquisitions, more commonly referred to as the M&A market, but rather the capital markets and the recent resurgence in the initial public offering or IPO market.

February 3, 2011

VERSACE: We’re rebounding, but at what speed?

What will happen to the stock market when the Fed completes its current bond-buying program at a time when we are feeling the fuller effects of recent commodity price and other input costs?

January 27, 2011

VERSACE: Starbucks’ mobile payment nifty idea

In early December, I introduced one of my newer investment themes — the New Cashless Consumer. The knee-jerk reaction by some was to assume that I was thinking of credit cards, but that would simply have been the Cashless Consumer.

January 20, 2011