2019-06-22

Tech Review 1) Big Tech & Antitrust, 2) World's Most Valuable Brands 2019

graphic "Tech Review" ©2017 DomainMondo.com
Tech Review (TR 2019-06-22)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news: Features • 1) Big Tech & Antitrust, 2) World's Most Valuable Brands 2019, Huawei? 3) Investing: The Week & Investor Notes: Where the 'Ready' Users of Libra & Calibra Are, 4)ICYMI Tech News: Unicorns, 5G, Nvidia & ARM, Google, Walmart, Slack, and more.

1) Big Tech & Antitrust
Antitrust expert Doug Melamed on the new probes into Big Tech

Doug Melamed, Stanford law professor, joins CNBC's "Squawk Alley" to discuss how the Microsoft antitrust case he helped bring to court might affect the new probes into major tech companies. CNBC Television video above published Jun 13, 2019.

2) World's Most Valuable Brands 2019
World's Most Valuable Brands 2019 | statista.com
Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Visa, Facebook, Alibaba, Tencent, McDonald's, AT&T.
For more: Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands 2019 (published June 2019).

Editor's note: Huawei? 
#47. Where will Huawei be next year? Huawei says U.S. ban hurting more than expected, to wipe $30 billion off revenue and Bloomberg.com: Huawei Braces for Phone Sales Drop of Up to 60 Million Overseas.
"The most ambitious start-ups attempted to transcend their region of origin to become seen as global brands."--brandz.com
Chinese Cash In Silicon Valley Is Suddenly Toxic: as U.S. startups reject their money, Chinese venture-capital firms in U.S. are structuring deals to avoid regulators or shutting down. See also:  World’s Top Bicycle Maker Says the Era of ‘Made in China’ Is Over and Apple Explores Moving Some Production Out of China--Trade tensions prompt iPhone maker to consider diversifying supply chain. On Friday the U.S. Department of Commerce expanded its national security “entity list” to bar Chinese supercomputer firms from buying U.S. parts and components without U.S. government approval.

3) Investing
graphic: "INVESTING"  ©2017 DomainMondo.com
The Week--NASDAQ Composite +3.0% | S&P 500 Index +2.2% | DJIA +2.4%--for the week all three major U.S. stock indexes gained at least 2.2%, with the S&P 500 hitting its first record close since April. 
The Backstory: U.S. stocks ended slightly lower Friday, but locked in strong weekly gains after the Federal Reserve indicated on Wednesday it could carry out rate cuts later this year if economic conditions decline, with investors eyeing a slowdown in the global economy, and the G20 meeting in Osaka, Japan, 28-29 June 2019, where a widely anticipated meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump may take place.
Investor Notes--where the 'ready' users of Libra & Calibra already are:
source: statista.com
Background:
  • Fed Chair LIVE Jun 19, 2:30pm EDT, ECB Draghi Chaos, Facebook Calibra & Libra"The first product Calibra will introduce is a digital wallet for Libra, a new global currency powered by blockchain technology."
  • In an opinion piece in the Financial Times on Friday, Facebook Inc’s co-founder Chris Hughes said the Libra cryptocurrency would hand over much of the control of monetary policy from central banks to private companies: “If global regulators don’t act now, it could very soon be too late,” wrote Hughes, who also said the corporations that would oversee the new currency would put their private interests - profits and influence - ahead of public ones. Editor's note: what Hughes describes is exactly how ICANN has been corrupted.   
  • The international Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has issued updated guidance concerning regulation of cryptocurrency and virtual assets at its meeting in Orlando, Florida.
  • European central bankers claim oversight over Facebook’s cryptocurrency--reuters.com. Reuters also reported that France is creating a G7 task force to study how central banks ensure cryptocurrencies like Facebook’s Libra are governed by regulations ranging from money-laundering laws to consumer-protection rules.

4) ICYMI Tech News:
graphic: "ICYMI Tech News" ©2017 DomainMondo.com
"Unicorns are amazingly deflationary vehicles. They're deflating rents, they're deflating driver salaries, they're deflating all kinds of things"--renown short-seller Jim Chanos explaining how Silicon Valley unicorns have pushed prices lower and why central banks are to blame.

According to latest estimates by Ericsson, 5G won’t really take off until 2021/2022. See also Crown Castle International: a play on the coming of 5G and the expansion of IoT--SeekingAlpha.com.

Nvidia says its accelerator chips will work with ARM processors by end of this year.

Google will eventually provide RCS Chat (replacement for SMS texting) directly to any Android user. Note also Google cancels plans for future tablets, focusing instead on Pixel phones and Pixelbooks (chromebooks).

Urban Mobility: Getting Beyond Gridlock--by 2030 robo-taxis, autonomous shuttles, and trains, will provide most urban mobility with private cars only a very small share, and buses almost non-existent.

Walmart: U.S. eCommerce Strategy and the Role of Jet.com. Walmart is the fourth largest online retailer in the US in 2019, according to eMarketer estimates, behind only Amazon, eBay, and Apple. See also: Apple says iPhones can now be fixed at all U.S. Best Buy stores, and Brick-and-Mortar Meltdown Gets Costly for Big Retailers--wolfstreet.com.

Slack closed at $38.62, June 20, 2019, up 48.5% from its $26 reference price, on its first day of trading as a direct listing, valuing the company at about $20B. Domain: slack.com. Investor relations: https://investor.slackhq.com/home/default.aspx.

UK: likely next Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, pledges to 'end the digital divide' by 2025, via a full rollout of fiber broadband.

Personal Tech: most U.S. mobile banking apps have security and privacy flaws, researchers say.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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