2019-02-23

Tech Review 1) Big Tech's Privacy Problem, 2) Amazon Air Expands (video)

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Tech Review (TR 2019-02-23)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news: Features • 1) Big Tech's Data Privacy Problem, 2) Amazon Air Expands, Look Out FedEx and UPS!, 3) Investing: The Week & Investor Notes: a. Amazon.com, Inc. $AMZN, b. EU, ECB & Italy,  4) ICYMI Tech News: Google's Waymo, Amazon, Samsung, IBM, eBay, Uber, Walmart, HFT Speed Bump, Zillow, Brick-and-Mortar Meltdown, Password Managers Vulnerabilities. 

1) Big Tech's Data Privacy Problem

Sean Parker, former President of Facebook and current Chairman of The Parker Foundation (parker.org), discusses big tech's data privacy problem--"Amazon not guaranteeing you any privacy"--CNBC International TV video published Feb 13, 2019.

See also: The U.S. government's Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Facebook are negotiating a record, multibillion-dollar fine for the company’s privacy lapses--WashingtonPost.com.

2) Amazon Air Expands, Look Out FedEx and UPS!

Amazon $AMZN aims to compete with FedEx $FDX and UPS $UPS in the logistics and shipping industry. That's what analysts told CNBC.com after Amazon Air recently expanded to 50 planes and announced it will open a $1.5 billion air hub in Northern Kentucky in 2021. Amazon is handling up to 26% of its own shipping, meaning FedEx, UPS and the U.S. Postal Service are losing a portion of Amazon's business. FedEx says it's not worried, but Morgan Stanley reports the major shippers have already lost 2% revenue to Amazon Air. CNBC.com video above published Feb 16, 2019.

3) Investing
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The Week: NASDAQ Composite +0.7% | S&P 500 Index +0.6% | DJIA +0.6%
 "a dramatic turnaround that has given investors renewed faith in the nearly 10-year bull market"--WSJ.com February 22, 2019.
Wall Street's Charging Bull
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Investor Notes: 
a. Amazon.com, Inc. $AMZN
On Amazon's Nixing New York for HQ2: "I’m confused. I really can’t understand why anyone would want to build a corporate HQ in Queens? Have you been there?"--Bill Blain

b. EU, ECB, & Italy:
Italy headed for 'vicious' debt crisis--government actions eroding investor trust--omfif.org.
"... the news changes our perceptions. The trick is to separate the chaos of new flow from the tau of markets. Markets are linear functions of buy/sell – they are not necessarily about common sense. To illustrate: last week I wrote about Italy, pointing out just how hopelessly its ensnared and entrapped within the strait-jacket of the Euro, with little prospect of growth, employment or upside. Yet Italian bonds are one of the top performing assets – AND WILL REMAIN SO – because the ECB can’t afford to let Italy go, and Europe sliding back into downturn pretty much ensures they’ll continue to bailout Italy and likely resurrect QE in some form ..."--MorningPorridge.com
ECB considers restarting stimulus mechanism--marketwatch.com.

4) ICYMI Tech News:
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Google’s Waymo risks repeating Silicon Valley’s most famous blunder--how to build a minimum viable product for driverless cars--arstechnica.com; and Google to unveil Project Stream, its "Netflix-Like Game Streaming Service" at a Game Developers Conference keynote on March 19--fortune.com.

Amazon has secured central London retail space for its checkout-free Amazon Go food stores, in what would be the first expansion of Amazon's automated convenience shops outside the United States--thegrocer.co.uk.

 Smartphones Are Boring
Samsung trying to reinvent itself as a top-tier supplier for 5G wireless networks and bridge a big gap with market leader Huawei, Ericsson and Nokia.

Cisco $CSCO--'Nothing But Network' Is Taking Cisco To A Very Good Place--seekingalpha.com.

IBM Watson Anywhere initiative makes Watson AI services available across AWS, Azure and GCP, in addition to their own IBM Cloud offerings.

eBay $EBAY: hedge funds and institutional investors place bets on the e-commerce platform.

Uber (uber.com) sues New York City over the law that caps the number of ride-hail cars and pausing the issuance of licenses to drivers for 12 months--theverge.com.

Why Walmart farms out same-day grocery deliveries to low-cost freelance drivers--reuters.com.

"Flash Boys" HFT Speed Bump (a 3-millisecond trading delay), to be implemented in the ICE Futures U.S., Inc. (IFUS) (pdf), gold daily and silver daily futures markets. Comments must be submitted on or before March 15, 2019.--CFTC.gov.

Zillow (zillow.com), a new breed of high-tech real estate flippers “iBuyers” using algorithms (and a healthy dose of Silicon Valley venture capital) to buy at massive scale--bloomberg.com.

Brick-and-Mortar Meltdown--“I prefer not to scare you at this point, okay. But it’s something that we’ve been able to withstand”--Simon Property Group CEO David Simon. See also "No Light At The End Of The Tunnel."

Personal Tech: Severe vulnerabilities uncovered in popular password managers--zdnet.com.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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