Tech Review | China Bridges The Gap To Hong Kong, Greater Bay Area

Tech Review (TR 2018-07-14)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1)  China Bridges The Gap To Hong Kong, Greater Bay Area, 2) The Hottest Tech IPOs in the Pipeline (podcast), 3) Investing: The Week, Investing Notes, 4) ICYMI Tech News.

1) China Bridges The Gap To Hong Kong, Greater Bay Area

Hong Kong's financial markets, Shenzhen's technology and Guangdong's manufacturing have the potential to turn the Greater Bay Area of China into an economic powerhouse according to FT.com in the video above published Jul 5, 2018.

Editor's note: Hong Kong is being subsumed into mainland China.

Greater Bay Area of China

Hongkong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (HZMB) | wikipedia.org CC BY-SA 4.0

2) The Hottest Tech IPOs in the Pipeline


Tech IPOs, especially in the enterprise space, have had strong showings so far this year, paving the way for more to come. TheStreet.com’s Eric Jhonsa, Annie Gaus and Nelson Wang look at some of the most highly-anticipated new issues, from Sonos and Tanium to Uber and Airbnb. Podcast published July 12, 2018.

3) Investing

The Week: NASDAQ Composite +1.8% | S&P 500 Index +1.5% | DJIA +2.3% --Editor's note: the NASDAQ closed the week at a new record high, with large-cap tech stocks leading the market rally:

NASDAQ Composite

“In the absence of a recession, which still appears to be more than a year away (if not 2-3 years), the most important thing for investors to focus on is corporate earnings, which are set to increase by approximately 20% over last year”--Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer, Independent Advisor Alliance (independentadvisoralliance.com).

Wall Street's Charging Bull

Investing Notes:

The U.S. is 'winning' the trade war, says Mohamed El-Erian--CNBC.com: Mohamad El-Erian, chief economic advisor at Allianz, says the U.S. "will win the trade war" adding "one of the upside risks, is that you may end up changing, the global landscape in a way that favors the U.S." and:

"When people realize that at the end of the day, the US will prevail, because [China] is a less open economy, because [the US] is a more dynamic economy, that ultimately you may end up in a situation where the US' position in global economic terms is better off."

Safe Haven Asset: “The U.S. dollar is now the most popular safe-haven asset” says Cheuk Wan Fan, head of investment strategy for Asia at HSBC Private Bank. US$-based money market funds  now offer rates of about 2 percent, a level above seven-year Treasuries last September--Bloomberg.com 5 Jul 2018. Axios.com: Since the middle of June, China’s currency (RMB) has fallen more than 3% against the dollar, and the Chinese government has intervened to "limit the fall."

US Stocks: Freight Transportation Services Index is booming — and that’s bullish for US stocks, "signaling that the stock market and the U.S. economy are just fine"--Marketwatch.com. It’s time to go full MAGA in your stock picks, says Deutsche Bank--Marketwatch.com 10 Jul 2018. Five ‘mega trends’ are producing soaring stocks regardless of  'trade tariffs fears': Artificial Intelligence, E-commerce, Mobile Payments, Biotechnology, Gaming. 

Italian Bank Stocks Tumble as Savona warns of Euro break-up--zerohedge.com 10 Jul 2018.

Data & Stats: zombie stores in zombie malls are not being counted as “vacant” retail space because "they’re no longer being marketed as retail space" and presto! the square footage disappears from vacant retail space stats--WolfStreet.com.

Cryptocurrency: Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized reports bloomberg.com.

Politics & Finance: Scaramucci Says His Political Foray ‘Cost Me a Lot’--bloomberg.com--now aspires to double the assets at his SkyBridge Capital to $20 billion in the next five years.

4) ICYMI Tech News:

• Amazon Prime Day 2018 | Amazon.com/PrimeDay starts July 16 at 3pm EDT.
• CO2 Emissions Hit 67-Year Low In Trump's America, As Rest-Of-World Rises--zerohedge.com 10 Jul 2018.
• Google may face a new record penalty this month from EU and have to respond with big Android changes; sources: fine expected to range into billions of dollars--WashingtonPost.com.
• IP Theft: former Apple employee Xiaolang Zhang charged by FBI with alleged theft of trade secrets related to Apple's autonomous car efforts--macrumors.com.
• Paypal to spend $3 billion a year on M&A-reuters.com
• Xiaomi closed below the IPO price on the first day of trading in Hong Kong after pricing IPO at the bottom of the range at $2.17/share and raising $4.7B--cnbc.com.  
• Apple Music had ~21.5M US subscribers as of last week while Spotify had ~22.5M; Apple's service growing faster than Spotify's in UK and Canada--ft.com.
• Privacy: Congress asks questions--Android (pdf) and iOS (pdf)--about smartphone software.
• The Future of Retail: 2018 and beyond--ZDnet.com.
• CRM: Add 'Reply' To Your Mass Emails--campaignsandelections.com.
• Fortune Brainstorm Tech 2018: Watch the livestream of  Fortune.com's annual technology conference, July 16 to 18, from Aspen, Colorado--Livestream | fortune.com.
• Personal Tech: The latest Linux Mint desktop is still the best desktop around--ZDnet.com.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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DISCLAIMER

Amazon Prime Day, New Shopping Holiday, Wednesday, July 15th (videos)

Amazon Drums Up Its Own New Holiday Called 'Prime Day' - Wednesday, July 15th - Rick Watson, CEO of Merchantry, talks with Bloomberg's Betty Liu about “Prime Day,” where Amazon urges customers to buy on the site for a created shopping holiday and how the company is taking on e-commerce competitors Walmart, Target, Jet, eBay and Costco. He speaks on “Bloomberg Markets,” July 14, 2015. (source: Bloomberg.com via YouTube)

Money Quote: In retail you only have 2 things: brand and time -- Merchantry CEO Rick Watson



Amazon Prime Day - "On July 15th, it’s Amazon Prime Day, a one-day only event with more deals than Black Friday, exclusive for Amazon Prime members. Not a Prime member? Sign up today at Amazon.com/primeday" (source: Amazon via YouTube)

CNN.com: Amazon, Walmart reveal crazy deals ahead of big sales day: "The 24-hour sale-a-thon is set to begin at 12:01am PT on Wednesday. Amazon's special savings day on Wednesday is to commemorate the company's 20th anniversary and is being promoted as having "more deals than Black Friday." After Amazon announced its plans last week, Walmart jumped in with a sales day of its own on the same day that will be filled with what it calls "atomic specials" and thousands of deals. Some of the Amazon discounts revealed Tuesday include a 40-inch TV for $115, savings of up to 70 percent on top kitchen brands, an Amazon Fire HD 7 tablet for $60 off (regularly retails for $139), over 50% off two Nikon COOLPIX cameras ... Walmart's specials included an Apple iPad Mini 2 for $265 (for a savings of $174), a Black and Decker Drill and 133 piece Home Project Kit for $50 (usually retails for $80), and a Toshiba 15.6" Satellite laptop for $377 (customers save $253) ..."

Stock Exchange: Stock Symbol | NASDAQ: AMZN

Principal domain names of companies referenced:

• amazon.com -- see also: amazon.com/primeday
• costco.com
• ebay.com
• jet.com (July 21 launch)
• target.com
• walmart.com
• merchantry.com (see below)

About Merchantry: Product Information Management for Retailers: "Merchantry provides a SaaS product information management (PIM) solution for multi-vendor e-commerce retailers whose growth is dependent on onboarding more vendors quickly and efficiently. Unlike other PIM solutions, Merchantry is built for retail and has a simple 4-step product information import wizard that even low-tech vendors love to work with. Many of the world’s most successful businesses have relied on our cloud-based technology platform for eCommerce success. Merchantry is venture-backed and headquartered in New York City." (source: merchantry.com)


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