Tech Review | Digital Advertising's Disruption and Data Addiction (video)

Tech Review (TR 2018-06-30)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Digital Advertising's Disruption and Data Addiction, 2) Four-way competition among China's smartphone giants, 3)Investing: The Week, Investing Notes: It's Summertime & Playing the "Trump",  Crypto, Gold, 4) ICYMI Tech News.

1) Digital Advertising's Disruption and Data Addiction - The advertising industry is in flux and no one can keep up:

CNBC International video above published Jun 26, 2018: advertising executives are facing a lot of questions about the future of their business - and not a lot of answers. CNBC’s Elizabeth Schulze reports from the Cannes Lions festival on disruption in the advertising industry, data monetization and privacy rules such as Europe's GDPR on data protection.

See also:

• The ad-based Internet is dead, but not because of privacy regulations--thehill.com.
• Google rebrands AdWords as Google Ads, consolidates enterprise tools as Google Marketing Platform, and unifies publisher monetization tools as Google Ad Manager--blog.google. 
• Google retires DoubleClick, AdWords brand names--Reuters.com.

2) Four-way competition among China's smartphone giants

source Statista.com (June 26, 2018)

Goodbye Samsung and Apple? Huawei, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi (mi) increasingly dominate the smartphone market in China. Also note that Xiaomi's IPO in Hong Kong valued the company at about $54 billion, roughly half the company’s initial goal--Bloomberg.com.

3) Investing

The Week: NASDAQ Composite -2.4% | S&P 500 Index -1.3% | DJIA -1.2%  | U.S. stocks end Friday broadly higher, major indexes post negative week but positive quarter. For the second quarter of 2018, all three indices ended up: DJIA +0.7%, S&P500 +2.9%, and the NASDAQ +6.3%. For the first half of 2018, the DJIA is -1.8%, the S&P500 +1.7%, and the NASDAQ +8.8%:

NASDAQ Composite

Investing Notes: It's Summertime & Playing the "Trump"

"... summer liquidity is so thin its’ difficult to see where the pressure to really spike a crash would come from. On my PA account – I’m waiting for the moment to pile in if it looks cheap – but not convinced that summer is necessarily a good time to be convinced of anything ... Playing the “Trump” is very much a matter of stripping out the negative bias news flow, working out what is real in negotiations, and assessing the real games being played in Geopolitics. Nothing is quite what it seems ..."--Bill Blain June 27, 2018.

 “The U.S. continues to be the most resilient economy and the source of many upward earnings revisions”--Marketwatch.com June 29, 2018.

Forget the tariff tantrum—S&P 500 is headed 10% higher in 2018, says Blackstone’s Wien--Marketwatch.com June 27, 2018.

Crypto:

Despite being in a mansion-sized doghouse, #bitcoin is still in our thoughts. We recently updated our correlation work on $BTC vs the S&P 500 for our DataTrek Morning Briefing. Does bitcoin’s decline tell us anything about the direction of US #stocks? The math is clear: NO.

— DataTrek Research (@DataTrekMB) June 26, 2018

• Bitcoin drops to $5,860, lowest since October 2017. True Believers with Fake Hopes Got Cleaned Out by Early Movers--WolfStreet.com Jun 24, 2018 "Down 70% from the peak. This is just not fun anymore ... at the moment, bitcoin is even worse – incredibly – than one of the worst fiat currencies in the world, the Argentine peso, which has plunged “only” 35% over the period during which bitcoin plunged 70%. That takes some doing!"
• Inside the Crypto World's Biggest Scandal--wired.com.
• Bitcoin: Mt. Gox bankruptcy in Japan changed to civil rehabilitation, allowing compensation to customers in bitcoin, which will reportedly 'more than cover cash losses'--Fortune.com.
• Blockchain will become 'obsolete' says Geopolitical Futures founder George Friedman--"I've never known any encryption technology not to be broken," Friedman told CNBC at the UBS CIO Global Forum in New York. CNBC also reported some analysts have noted that if and when an emerging technology called quantum computing matures, it could easily decrypt blockchain.

Gold:

• Gold prices mark another 2018 low even as surging dollar pauses--Marketwatch.com June 25, 2018.
• Safe Haven? A bearish ‘death cross’ formed in gold even as trade turmoil rattles stock market--Marketwatch.com June 21, 2018--“Gold is getting bogged down from a stronger U.S. dollar.”

4) ICYMI Tech News:

• Amazon buys online pharmacy PillPack--thehill.com.
• Alibaba v. Tencent: The Battle for Supremacy in China - Jack Ma of Alibaba and Pony Ma of Tencent have built tech titans that dominate China's digital economy--Fortune.com.
• Google v. Apple: There Is A Clear Winner--SeekingAlpha.com. See also 4 Myths about Alphabet (Google)--SeekingAlpha.com.
• Google: Interview of Danny Sullivan, founder of Search Engine Land, who is now Google's “search liaison” giving explanations for the Google search engine's 'errors'--CNBC.com
• The Walt Disney Company ($DIS) can buy Twenty-First Century Fox ($FOXA) provided it sells 22 regional sports networks says US Department of Justice--justice.gov.
• Redfin (NASDAQ: RDFN) (redfin.com): The 'Everything' Of Real Estate--SeekingAlpha.com.
• Sprint and T-Mobile Merger: The 12 Points From The FCC Filing That Signal Merger Approval And Potential Appreciation--SeekingAlpha.com. See also "Examining the Competitive Impact of the T-Mobile – Sprint Transaction"--Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights (US Senate video), June 27, 2018.

• WaPo Unions vs Jeff Bezos: “When Your Owner Is Richer Than God, It’s Easier To Get Uppity”: Discontent At The Washington Post As The Union Targets Jeff Bezos | VanityFair.com. [Editor's note: Bezos still thinking about building Amazon's HQ2 in a suburb of Washington, DC?]

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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Berkshire Hathaway Chair & Vice Chair: Warren Buffet & Charlie Munger

Warren Buffett: Advice For Entrepreneurs (2018)

Warren Buffett: Advice For Entrepreneurs (2018). Interview Date: 13th February, 2018.
Event: 10,000 small businesses summit. Investors Archive video published Feb 15, 2018.

A speech by billionaire and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett. In this speech, Warren tells three stories of entrepreneurs who against unfavourable circumstances, created successful businesses. These stories demonstrate key principle that Warren sees as necessary for a business to succeed.

Video Segments:
0:00 Introduction
0:38 Giving speeches
2:28 Buying a business from two women
6:42 Lessons learnt from Jack Taylor creating Enterprise
16:22 Inspire others
17:43 Important decisions in life
18:56 Simple rules

Warren Buffett Books:
The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
The Essays of Warren Buffett
Tap Dancing to Work: Warren Buffett on Practically Everything

Warren Buffett's Favorite Books:
The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing
Security Analysis: Sixth Edition
Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits and Other Writings

Transcript (auto-generated):

A Conversation with Charlie Munger and Michigan Ross - 2017

The Ross School of Business - University of Michigan video above published Dec 20, 2017: Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, joins Michigan Ross Dean Scott DeRue for a conversation about Mr. Munger's life, career journey, philanthropic legacy, and his thoughts on a few current global trends. Recorded Nov 30, 2017 in Los Angeles as part of an event for alumni of the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. Scott DeRue and Charlie Munger are introduced by John E. Conlin, President of NWQ Investment Management Co. To jump directly to the conversation with Charlie, forward to: 2:57.

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency:

"I think it is perfectly asinine to even pause to think about them," Munger said. "It's bad people, crazy bubble, bad idea, luring people into the concept of easy wealth without much insight or work. That's the last thing on Earth you should think about … There's just a whole lot of things that aren't going to work for you. Figure out what they are and avoid them like the plague. And one of them is bitcoin. … It is total insanity."

"You know it is one thing to think gold has some marvelous store of value because man has no way of inventing more gold or getting it very easily, so it has the advantage of rarity. Believe me, man is capable of somehow creating more bitcoin. … They tell you there are rules and they can't do it. Don't believe them. When there is enough incentive, bad things will happen."

Transcript (auto-generated):

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DISCLAIMER

Gold & Silver? The Oil Market is Bigger Than ALL Metal Markets Combined

Oil production per year: 34 billion barrels (including other liquids)
Oil market size: $1.7 trillion* per year

Compare the annual market sizes of all major metals and minerals that are mined throughout the world:

• Gold: $170 billion
• Iron: $115 billion
• Copper: $91 billion
• Aluminum: $90 billion
• Zinc: $34 billion
• Manganese: $30 billion
• Nickel: $21 billion
• Silver: $20 billion

Other metals: $67 billion (including platinum, palladium, titanium, tin, moly, uranium, and more)

The total amount works out to $660 billion – just a fraction of the size of the oil market. Source: VisualCapitalist.com (*October 14, 2016)

See:

Remember when it was a tin foil hat conspiracy theory that the gold market is manipulated

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 29, 2018

The one thing the CFTC headlines fail to note is that all the traders who were arrested today were manipulating the gold market

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 29, 2018

These Are The 6 Traders Who Were Just Arrested For Manipulating The Gold Market https://t.co/kQVetXi1eZ

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 29, 2018

See also: Investing Notes: Trump Effect on Gold & Guns

 

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Explaining Swings in Bitcoin’s Price, Cryptocurrency Primer (video)

Explaining the Swings in Bitcoin’s Price I Fortune

Video published Aug 17, 2017, by Fortune.com: Bitcoin has been on a tear since the start of 2017. But according to Fortune’s Jen Wieczner, the cryptocurrency is due for a downturn. Supply and Demand, Hype and Scarcity.

A Primer on Cryptocurrency

Video above published Aug 17, 2017, by L2inc.com: By popular demand, Scott Galloway and Aswath Damodaran discuss topics in cryptocurrency, from why it's impossible to value, to why people choose Bitcoin over gold.

0:01  The number one requested topic among users of Winners and Losers is:
0:07  cryptocurrencies.
0:08  Aswath, tell us more about cryptocurrencies and how you price and/or value them.
0:13  The first thing is you cannot value currency. You can price them.
0:16  Real quick - difference between value and pricing.
0:21  The difference between value and pricing is value you try to estimate what you get as cashflow.
0:25  So when you value a business you project out what the business will generate as cash flow.
0:28  So you can value cash flow generating assets.
0:31  But gold, currencies, Bitcoin are not cash flow generating assets.
0:35  You ask me what the value of gold is.
0:37  I don't know but I can price gold and we price currencies relative to each other.
0:41  And that's, I think, the opening to think about cryptocurrencies and why they've risen so much over the last few years.
0:48  If you think about gold,
0:49  let's think about gold - the alternative to paper currencies for hundreds of years.
0:55  When people lost trust in paper currency because all you have is a piece of paper,
1:00  it's all based on trust.
1:02  Doesn't every fiat currency eventually collapse throughout history
1:05  Fiat currencies vary widely.
1:08  In France if you gave me a Venezuelan Bolivar I'm probably better off just using it as toilet paper than trying to spend it.
1:12  So when we talk about fiat currencies not all fiats are equally trustworthy.
1:17  So when we lose trust in currencies, we go elsewhere.
1:21  For the longest time the place we went was gold.
1:24  I think what's changed is for younger people the place they go when they don't trust paper currencies is now cryptocurrency.
1:31  But help me - I understand, theoretically as an old guy
1:36  you go to gold and it can be used for fillings or jewelry.
1:39  What is the underlying guarantee and limit of a cryptocurrency?
1:44  Let's face it, the people who bought gold didn't want to use it,
1:48  they wanted to sell it to somebody else at a higher price.
1:50  It's a pure pricing game. The reason people have historically bought gold is not because they think gold has a physical use
1:57  but because they think it'll have enough of a pricing attached to it that they can sell it to somebody at a higher price.
2:03  So it's the illusion that it's become a store of value.
2:05  Exactly.
2:06  Okay so help me price Bitcoin and Ethereum.
2:10  I think the key to think about is if you have enough of the population losing trust
2:15  because we lost trust in governments and central banks and who can blame people for losing trust in them
2:20  and if you're 35, 30 or 25, you have no interest in pricing gold and playing the gold game,
2:27  you actually think you have an inside track on playing the pricing game with Bitcoin
2:32  and one of the things that always strikes me when I talk to people in this space
2:37  who are cryptocurrency fanatics is they think they know more than they do.
2:41  They think they understand everything about block chains and who
2:44  owns what and where the pricing is going and that's always a piece of the pricing game:
2:48  people who are overconfident about the capacity to forecast price.
2:53  We don't need very many people for the pricing to kind of do what it's done
2:56  which is if four or five percent of the population has lost trust and is paranoid.
3:00  So Trump is the best thing to happen for cryptocurrencies.
3:05  Collectively, globally. You could argue that governments across the globe...
3:12  It's I think a problem.
3:13  So you think in any sort of crisis, more missile tests coming out of North Korea, cryptocurrencies similar to gold go up, people stick cryptocurrencies under the mattress.
3:22  In fact one of the most interesting things about this bull market is it's a very differentiated market.
3:27  Half the market thinks that everything is cheap,
3:30  the other half thinks everything is increased.
3:33  I've never seen a divide as large as I have in the market that we're in
3:36  which is between the Bulls and the Bears.
3:38  There's almost no connecting point and it's very political. It's more political than economic.
3:44  Tell me who you voted for in the last election, I can tell you whether you're bullish or bearish.
3:48  That's how much of a correlation there is between politics and what you think about the market now.
3:53  which is not a healthy place to be.
3:56  So I think that even though markets have been going up,
3:59  the subset of people who think that markets are overpriced is a fairly large one and it's very intense
4:04  and they believe this for three, four, five years and that's the group that's increasingly leaving stocks
4:11  and they're saying well I can't go to bonds, I'm getting 2%,
4:14  what am I going to put my money in where I can make some money in the future?
4:18  A 25 year old has a hundred bucks. Mock portfolio - just create an asset allocation for me and a 55 year old.
4:25  The tool is very simple: you want to spread your bets.
4:27  Time is your ally.
4:29  So the 25 year old, don't try to time the market, don't tell me the markets you know, too high, too low, it doesn't matter.
4:36  You've got 40 years to play this game, just take your money, make your asset allocation.
4:42  So you want a portfolio that looks like this.
4:45  If I took the market cap of every traded asset in the world put in a pie chart
4:48  I want the pie chart of your portfolio to look very much like that.
4:53  Diversification and low cost.
4:55  Exactly.
4:55  55 year old.
4:57  55 year old you gotta worry more about this,
4:59  especially about the fact that if you have a shock to the market you might not be able to make that money back before you need it for retirement.
5:06  So 55 you know, the first question I would ask is hey do you still have an income?
5:11  If you're already retired at 55 the kind of advice I'm going to give you is going to be very different
5:15  than you give a 55 year old with an income stream still coming from working
5:18  because let's face it, a lot of 55 year olds have 15 years of work life still left in them.
5:24  So I think that you've got to get more cautious,
5:27  but the old know once you get to be 65 everything's got to be in cash.
5:31  You got to rethink because a lot of 65 year olds are still making enough of an income
5:34  that they don't need to touch their portfolios yet.
5:37  So it really is a question of do you depend on your portfolio for your cash needs
5:41  and if the answer is yes
5:42  then I'm going to increasingly shift your weight from any kind of risky asset class
5:46  because there is no safe place in the world where you can put your money in, make an 8% return and still draw cash every year
5:53  and not worry about your principal being affected.
5:55  Thanks very much, Professor Aswath Damodaran.
5:58  And more information at Damodaran.com.

See also: The ABCs of BITCOIN .... James Altucher | LinkedIn.com

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News Review: Last Round of ICANN New gTLD .AFRICA Litigation?

Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2017-08-20) with analysis and opinion: Features •  1) Last Round of ICANN New gTLD .AFRICA Litigation? 2) Other ICANN news: a. FY18 budget, b. ALAC, c. UDRP, d. Quote of the Week, e. SO/AC accountability, f. Theatre of the Absurd, 3) Names, Domains & Trademarks: It only gets worse for ICANN & new gTLDs, 4) ICYMI: Free Speech & Internet Freedom, 5) Investing: Gold, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, 6) Most Read.

1) Is This The Last Round of ICANN New gTLD .AFRICA Litigation?
UPDATE Sept 10, 2017: New gTLD .AFRICA Litigation--Plaintiff DCA (DotConnectAfrica Trust) Survives ICANN's Motion for Summary Judgment--"ICANN's motion for summary judgment is denied as to the second, third, fourth, fifth, and tenth causes of action. The motion is granted as to the remaining causes of action."[p.10] [Dated Aug 9, 2017](emphasis added)."

Excerpt from ICANN's Reply In Support of ICANN's Motion for Summary Judgment p.2 (filed Aug 4, 2017)

Excerpt from Declaration of Sophia Bekele Eshete (highlighting added)

Bottom Line: Either the Covenant Not To Sue in the New gTLD Applicant Guidebook is enforceable or not. Previously, the California Superior Court on February 3, 2017 (pdf), denied Plaintiff DotConnectAfrica Trust's (DCA) Motion for Preliminary Injunction citing the U.S. District Court Order in Ruby Glen, LLC v ICANN (pdf), holding that the "covenant not to sue" in the Guidebook is enforceable, thereby allowing ICANN to delegate .AFRICA in favor of registry operator ZA Central Registry.

Recent filings in the DCA vs ICANN et al California Superior Court action:

ICANN's Reply in Support of Motion for Summary Judgment [PDF, 9.08 MB] Aug 4, 2017

• ICANN's Responses to Plaintiff's Evidentiary Objections [PDF, 20.0 MB]
• ICANN's Evidentiary Objections to Declaration of Sophia Bekele Eshete [PDF, 1.13 MB]
• ICANN's Reply to Plaintiff's Response to ICANN's Statement of Undisputed Material Facts and Responses to Additional Undisputed Materials Facts [PDF, 32.3 MB] 4 August 2017

Plaintiff's Opposition to ICANN's Motion for Summary Judgment [PDF, 689 KB] July 26, 2017

• Plaintiff's Objections to Evidence [PDF, 281 KB]
• Declaration of Sara C. Colón [PDF, 228 KB]
• Exhibits A to I [PDF, 6.30 MB]
• Declaration of Sophia Bekele Eshete [PDF, 283 KB]
• Exhibits 1 to 24 [PDF, 10.3 MB]
• Plaintiff's Separate Statement of Disputed Material Facts and Additional Undisputed Material Facts in Opposition to ICANN's Motion for Summary Judgment [PDF, 1.82 MB] 

ICANN's Motion for Summary Judgment [PDF, 3.33 MB] May 26, 2017

• Statement of Undisputed Material Facts [PDF, 995 KB]
• Declaration of Jeffrey LeVee [PDF, 2.79 MB]
• Exhibits A to M [PDF, 4.23 MB]

2) Other ICANN news

a. ICANN FY18 Operating Plan and Budget adopted by the Board, June, 2017 (pdf) excerpt below is ICANN FY18 (ending June 30, 2018) funding:

Apparently ICANN expects to lose one-fourth of all registrars in FY18 (ending June 2018)

b. ICANN At-Large Community / At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC): "This fully updated Final Report contains a list of recommendations which Reviewers believe reflect the needs of At-Large Community and for which there is sufficient community consensus. There were some cases where agreement with the current At-Large leadership was not reached, but which Reviewers strongly believe need to be implemented in the interests of the At-Large Community and the ICANN organisation as a whole."--Review of the ICANN At-Large Community Final Report (pdf), 2 May 2017, p.6. Is "current leadership" the core problem inside ALAC?

c.  Where to Search UDRP Decisions | circleid.com: "Unfortunately, there is no longer an official, central repository of all UDRP decisions that is freely available online." [Editor's note: ICANN created the UDRP (note the broken links on that ICANN webpage), but no longer keeps a central repository of UDRP decisions for quality control oversight and review for consistency, education of trademark and domain name registrants, etc. ICANN would rather pay bloated salaries and benefits to the inept cronies* of ICANN ex-CEO Fadi Chehade and his "sidekick" ICANN Global Domains President Akram Atallah, rather than spend money doing its job competently for the global internet community. What would it take for ICANN to do its job properly in this regard? Just one lawyer who could work remotely from his/her home, provided ICANN required all UDRP providers to file their decisions electronically via a searchable, sortable, ICANN database interface.]

*IoNmag.asia: "only one member of the C-suite hired since [ICANN CEO] Chehade came on board has not been a friend or former co-worker [of Chehade and Atallah] ... Every new vice president based in the Los Angeles headquarters has been a friend or former co-worker. Frustrated with the community intransigence, Chehade hired from within the community to deal with the community, while his group in Los Angeles became increasingly separated from the broader organization and began to think of themselves as almost a separate company." (emphasis added)

d. Quote of the week:

"I'm sure quite a lot of "professional" analysis and discourse has led to serious errors of policy at ICANN. I'm sure a lot of professionals made predictions about new gTLDs and appropriate strategies, for themselves and their clients, all now proven wrong. Many folks lost money, time, and careers due to those mistakes, betting the wrong way. They're looking for a new direction, superior analysis, and better solutions than those of the past ... I think the evidence-based policy making (as opposed to the flawed policymaking at ICANN that got us here, which was based on incorrect conjectures and weak analysis) will ultimately lead us in the right direction."--George Kirikos [gnso-rpm-wg] (emphasis added)

e. CCWG Accountability WS2 SO/AC Accountability Subgroup Meeting #29, 17 August 2017,
excerpt re: comment submitted by editor of DomainMondo.com:

f. Theatre of the Absurd ICANN-style: Enhancing ICANN Accountability WS2 Jurisdiction  SubGroup Meeting #42, 16 August 2017:

"This is Greg [Greg Shatan, WS2 Jurisdiction SubGroup Rapporteur]. If I could just respond first, we have not yet reached the discussion of the path forward proposal. We will get to it after this discussion. I'd like on see if anybody else agrees with Thiago's [Thiago Braz Jardim Oliveira, Brazilian diplomat, member of GAC] world view of the group. I find it a conspiracy theory and I don't indulge in conspiracy theories and but everyone is entitled to their opinion and worldview, just not entitled to their own facts"(emphasis added). Listen to the Adobe Connect Video Replay or mp3 audio for more.

3) Names, Domains & Trademarks

It only gets worse for ICANN & its new gTLDs (new generic top-level domains): Namecheap will discontinue several Uniregistry [Frank Schilling] and XYZ [Daniel Negari] domain extensions [new gTLDs] | OnlineDomain.com, [Editor's note: discontinued new gTLDs also include .RICH and .LUXURY, complete list here].

Discontinued Domains & Price Changes | Namecheap.com Blog: "... we do have to discontinue support of TLDs [top-level domains] from time to time. Some of our TLDs currently face significant price increases from the registry. As a result, we have decided to discontinue the sale of these [new gTLD] domains to protect our customers." (emphasis added) [Editor's note: don't look to ICANN for any consumer (registrant) protection, inept ICANN is the source of the problem.]

And Namecheap is not alone--GoDaddy also drops Uniregistry new gTLDs' domain names--"GoDaddy strives to provide its customers with great product experiences wherever possible. After careful consideration, we decided to stop offering new Uniregistry [new gTLD] domain names for sale because their pricing changes caused frustration and uncertainty with our customers."--Mike McLaughlin, EVP & GM, Domains, GoDaddy Inc., as reported in DomainNameWire.com, August 18, 2017.

• "Booking.com" Entitled To U.S. Trademark | MediaPost.com: U.S. District Judge Brinkema found that although the word "booking" is generic, adding the top-level domain ".com" entitled the company to trademark protection for the mark Booking.com.

• Whack-A-Mole Continues: Latest Attempts To Slap Down Trademark Scammers | Fox Rothschild LLP | JDSupra.com

• White Paper: Assessing the Value of a Domain | MarkMonitor.com (pdf). 

• Registration open for 2017 MarkMonitor Forum - October 11 & 12, San Francisco, CA.

4) ICYMI Internet Domain News 

•  Free Speech & Internet Freedom: internet intermediaries, e.g., GoDaddy, Google, and CloudFlare, barring neo-Nazis sets dangerous precedents for silencing legitimate voices — Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression | Electronic Frontier Foundation | eff.org.

•  Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) government block on social media images an appalling attack on freedom of expression | Amnesty International | amnesty.org

•  China targets Alibaba's Taobao, other e-commerce sites, in VPN crackdown | Reuters.com

•  China ranks 134th in global internet speed while Taiwan comes in 3rd | Shanghaiist.com

•  India: With Internet Archive Ban, Bollywood's Fight Against Piracy Threatens Online Freedom Again | TheWire.in

•  U.S. Senate Crackdown on Online Sex Trafficking Hits Opposition | NYTimes.com

•  Apple and Amazon are helping China censor the internet | Slate.com

•  China is perfecting a new method for suppressing dissent on the internet | Vox.com

•  The War Over Internet Freedom Heats Up | capitalandmain.com: "The juggernaut of deregulation under the current administration threatens to crush the net neutralists."

5) Investing

Gold a safe haven? "... from July 1997 to September 1998, when the Asian financial crisis brought devaluations to half a dozen countries, the Russian ruble collapsed, and hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management was bailed out. Far from gaining from safe-haven flows, the yellow metal fell 13 percent ...."--Bloomberg.com

How about Bitcoin or other Cryptocurrencies?: "99% of Cryptocurrencies are total scams. And, yes, Cryptocurrencies are in a bubble .... there's a lot of hype and scammers out there [Editor's note: sounds just like ICANN and the new gTLDs' hucksters in 2014]. We've seen this story at least twice before in past 20 years and many people have gotten hurt ..."--James Altucher | LinkedIn.com [Editor's note: Altucher goes on to note one can make money if you can identify which cryptocurrencies are legitimate and then successfully trade on the "volatility" in pricing--a challenging feat for most investors. You've Been Warned!]

For cautious investors, I suggest reading thoroughly: How to Bet on a Bond Market Collapse | USNews.com: "... Gundlach warned that rising interest rates will negatively impact stock prices as well ..."

6) Most read posts (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this past week on DomainMondo.com: 

1. Tech Review: Amazon Plans to Disrupt Payments Industry (video)

2.  News Review: Uneducated and Illiterate, the Internet's Next Big User Group

3.  iPhone Generation: Lonely & Depressed Losers? (video)

4.  Alibaba Group $BABA Q2 2017 Earnings LIVE Webcast Aug 17 Replay

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

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Market Strategist Sees Gold at $1,180 and Oil at $45 (video)

Market Strategist Sees Gold at $1,180 and Oil at $45:

Video above published Mar 10, 2017: In this excerpt from "Futures in Focus," Bill Baruch chief market strategist at iiTrader.com, a Chicago futures and commodities brokerage, examines the gold market ahead of the Federal Reserve's March meeting this week (Mar 14-15) and looks at the price break below $50 in the oil market. He speaks with Bloomberg's Mark Barton  on "Bloomberg Daybreak: Americas."

Tweets by iiTRADERbill


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MacroView: OECD & Trump: Fiscal Initiatives to Escape Low-growth Trap

Domain Mondo's weekly review of  macro economic and investing news: 1. OECD & Trump; 2. Confidence higher since Trump election; 3. FOMC rate increase; 4. Dollar strengthens, gold falls; 5. Trump talked, Fed listened; 6. Caveat from Jeff Gundlach; 7. Trump Summit with Tech Leaders; 8. Did Russia Hack the DNC and Clinton campaign? Who cares? 9. Student loans, which lie did they believe? 10. Good investing is boring.
 
MacroView Feature •  OECD and Trump Agree: Use Fiscal Initiatives to Escape Low-growth Trap

Jamie Dimon: Blame Bad Public Policy for Slow Growth

Video above published Dec. 15, 2016: JPMorgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon discussed Detroit’s economic recovery and whether the techniques they are using could be replicated elsewhere with Bloomberg’s Megan Murphy.

Make better use of fiscal initiatives to escape low-growth trap, OECD says in latest Global Economic Outlook (OECD.org Nov 28, 2016):

"Among the major advanced economies, activity is expected to accelerate in the United States, due to an assumed easing of fiscal policy, with the economy projected to grow by 2.3% in 2017 and 3% in 2018. The euro area will grow at a 1.6% rate in 2017 and by 1.7% in 2018. In Japan, growth is projected at 1% in 2017 and 0.8% in 2018. The 35-country OECD area is projected to grow by 2% in 2017 and 2.3% in 2018, according to the Outlook.

"With rebalancing continuing in China, growth is expected to continue drifting lower, to 6.4% in 2017 and 6.1% in 2018. India’s growth rates are expected to hover above 7.5% over the 2017-18 period, but many emerging market economies will continue to grow at a more sluggish pace. The deep recession in Brazil is expected to end in 2017, after which the economy will grow at a 1.2% rate in 2018.

"The Outlook draws attention to conditions that create a “window of opportunity” for new fiscal initiatives, as extraordinarily accommodative monetary policy has led to very low interest rates and created fiscal space. A targeted annual increase in public spending of ½ percent of GDP could be financed for several years in most countries without increasing the debt-to-GDP ratio in the medium term. Combining this initiative with structural reforms, and acting collectively across countries, would boost the impact, according to the Outlook.

"“This is not a blank cheque for governments,” Mr Gurría said. “The OECD is calling for fiscal policy to be used more wisely, with spending targeted at areas that boost growth, like high-quality infrastructure investment, innovation, education and skills, which also make growth more inclusive.” Read the full speech.

The mission of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Paris, France, is to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world. The OECD's goal is "to build a stronger, cleaner and fairer world." Members and partners of the OECD. For more see:

• Global Economic Outlook, November 2016
• Using the fiscal levers to escape the low-growth trap
• General Assessment of the Macroeconomic Situation (pdf)
• Press Conference: Escaping the Low-Growth Trap? Effective Fiscal Initiatives, Avoiding Trade Pitfalls (pdf)

2.  Consumer, business, CEO confidence higher since Trump election: "Americans from all corners of the economy seem to be enjoying the conditions a lot more since the election of Donald Trump. Nearly every measure of consumer, business, or executive confidence has gained in the month since the election, according to Michelle Meyer, chief US economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch."--BusinessInsider.com (P.S. Someone ought to tell Michelle Obama.)

3.  U.S. Federal Reserve FOMC Press Conference LIVE Video Replay 12/14/16. The end of a flatline monetary policy?

source: Statista

4.  Dollar Climbs to Strongest Since 2003 on Fed Path; Bonds Drop | Bloomberg.com Dec 15, 2016: "The dollar climbed to the highest level since 2003 against the euro and gold plunged as the prospect of a steeper path for U.S. interest rates filtered through markets."

5. Trump Talked, the Fed Listened: Let’s Shrink the Balance Sheet, Bullard Says | WolfStreet.com

6. Caveat from Jeff Gundlach, December 13, 2016, webcast: "... stocks typically rise in the days after an election, just as they have. But they drop after the president is sworn in, as investors realize that he does not have a magic wand to implement everything they are hopeful for ..."

7. Trump Summit with Tech Leaders: TechReview: Silicon Valley's Pilgrimage to Trump Tower to Meet Trump.

Productive summit today w/ @realDonaldTrump & tech leaders focused on job creation & innovation pic.twitter.com/sizO8C83d6

— Mike Pence (@mike_pence) December 14, 2016

8. Did Russia Hack the DNC and Clinton campaign? Who cares? If so, was it a good thing Wikileaks.org exposed Clinton & DNC corruption and collusion, including collusion with so-called mainstream media (MSM), the "rigged" Democratic primary against Bernie Sanders, all the conflicts of interest and "pay-to-play" schemes, and foreign government funding of the Clinton Foundation while Hillary was Secretary of State, $200-800,000 per speech fees, and all the other things the Clintons, the Clinton campaign, the Washington establishment, and mainstream media did not want us to know? I think you know the answer.

"Here are two of political history’s great constants: first, countries meddling in the internal affairs of others (both enemies and “friends”); and, second, bogus charges from a faction in one country that foreigners are meddling in its internal affairs to help another faction. Both are poison for any country that wishes to rule itself."--Jeremy Scahill, Jon Schwarz, TheIntercept.com

The WaPo-NYTimes-MSM narrative of Russian election hacking has become so incessant and emphatic that it’s easy to forget that no one has proven the claim. TheIntercept.com's Sam Biddle "sifted the public evidence, most of which comes from private security firms with a vested interest in the outcome, and found questionable assumptions, guesswork, and speculation." See Here’s the Public Evidence Russia Hacked the DNC — It’s Not Enough | TheIntercept.com December 14, 2016:

"It’s very hard to buy the argument that the Democrats were hacked by one of the most sophisticated, diabolical foreign intelligence services in history, and that we know this because they screwed up over and over again."

On the other hand, if you truly want to understand how and why Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election, read How Clinton lost Michigan — and blew the election | POLITICO.com.

"People believe the news they want to ... The establishment is up for grabs."--Lefsetz.com

9.  Which lie did they believe?--"Free government money, just sign here" or "With all the money you'll be making after college, the student loans won't be a problem"--Home ownership for those under 30 shrinks while student debt keeps growing:

Millennial (under age of 30) Home Ownership Shrinks as Student Loan Debt Grows

•  One More Thing: Good investing is boring

"If investing is entertaining, if you're having fun, you're probably not making any money. Good investing is boring."--George Soros. 

“Good investing is usually quite boring.”--Adam Nash, CEO of Wealthfront

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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Dow Heading for 20,000, Stocks Rise, Gold Falls Ahead of Fed Rate Hike

Blue-chip index nears milestone as tech joins the Trump rally--Traders assign 100% odds to a Fed rate hike on Wednesday:

DJIA 3-month chart (source: google.com)

S&P500 Index (source: google.com)

Fed Interest Rate Hike Bad News For China? At the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on Wednesday, an interest rate hike of 0.25% is expected. This rate hike will be only the second increase by the Federal Reserve in 10 years (the first increase took place December 2015). This may have ramifications on emerging markets in general and China in particular which faces an economic slowdown. A U.S. interest rate increase will likely increase capital outflows and generate additional growth headwinds for China. 

Headlines Tuesday leading up to the expected Fed Rate Hike:

Dow Heads for 20,000 as Stocks Rise, Gold Falls: "Global stocks advanced, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average within 50 points of 20,000 on speculation that the Federal Reserve’s expected rate increase is a signal of confidence that the economy is strengthening. The dollar and Treasuries were little changed. IBM Corp. and Intel Corp. led gains in the blue-chip index as it heads for a fresh record and the round-number milestone ... Its relative-strength index stood at the highest level in two decades ..."--Bloomberg.com

IBM Lays Out Plans to Hire 25,000 in U.S. Ahead of Trump Meeting: "IBM Chief Executive Officer Ginni Rometty said she plans to hire about 25,000 people in the U.S. and invest $1 billion over the next four years, laying out her vision for filling technology jobs in America on the eve of a meeting of industry leaders with President-elect Donald Trump. Rometty, who is on Trump’s advisory panel of business leaders, will join Facebook Inc.’s Sheryl Sandberg, Amazon.com Inc.’s Jeff Bezos and Alphabet Inc.’s Larry Page and Eric Schmidt at a summit with Trump Wednesday in New York that is said to focus on jobs."--Bloomberg.com

Small Business Owners' Optimism Skyrockets Following Trump Victory: "The November reading of the National Federation of Independent Businesses' small business optimism index jumped to 98.4 from 94.9 — its sharpest surge since 2009 — with all of the increase in sentiment coming after the U.S. elections held on Nov. 8."--Bloomberg.com

After talking with Trump, Bill Gates likens president-elect to JFK: "... in the same way President Kennedy talked about the space mission and got the country behind that, I think whether it's education or stopping epidemics ... [or] in this energy space, there can be a very upbeat message that [Trump's] administration [is] going to organize things, get rid of regulatory barriers, and have American leadership through innovation ... Of course, my whole career has been along those lines. And he was interested in listening to that. And I'm sure there will be further conversation."--Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates after recently speaking with Trump--CNBC.com.

"Allegations of Hacking Election Are Baseless" Say High-Level American Intelligence Officials: "The various ways in which usually anonymous spokespeople for U.S. intelligence agencies are equivocating – saying things like “our best guess” or “our opinion” or “our estimate” etc. – shows that the emails alleged to have been “hacked” cannot be traced across the network. Given NSA’s extensive trace capability, we conclude that DNC and HRC servers alleged to have been hacked were, in fact, not hacked."--WashingtonsBlog.com

Obama Says No Evidence that Russia Tampered with Votes in Election: During an interview with the Daily Show’s Trevor Noah, Obama downplayed the hack of a private email account of Clinton campaign chief John Podesta. "We were frankly more concerned in the run up to the election to the possibilities of vote tampering, which we did not see evidence of, and we’re confident that we can guard against ... None of this should be a big surprise,” Obama said, “Russia trying to influence our elections dates back to the Soviet Union.” Obama dismissed the hack and the leaked emails as “not very interesting” and lacking “explosive” revelations. He puzzled as to why it was an “obsession” by the news media despite the knowledge that the Russians were responsible.--Breitbart.com.

Trump's selection of  Tillerson lifts hope of US rapprochement in Moscow: "Sergei Karaganov, one of Russia's most senior foreign policy hands, says the difference is that Tillerson is a hard-nosed pragmatist who [as Secretary of State] will focus on getting things done, and leave aside the many political and philosophical issues where Russia and the US will never agree. Like many in Moscow's upper circles, Mr. Karaganov has met Tillerson and says that his ratification would be a signal that genuine and lasting detente between the two powers is a real possibility."--CSMonitor.com

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Dot Com Domain Names, Better than Gold?

Istanbearish - NYTimes.com: "... we have a chronic problem of too much saving chasing too few good investment opportunities, which means that you only feel prosperous when money thinks it has found more good places to go than it really has — and soon enough figures that out, with nasty effects."--Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winner for Economics, Mr. Krugman's current academic research is focused on economic and currency crises.

Some have tried stocks. Some have tried gold. Some have even tried bitcoins. At some point (and probably much sooner than most think), most prudent investors and investment managers will want their investment mix to contain portfolios of dot com domain names. Why? -- here's my reasoning --

The digital economy is the only growth economy worth investing in for many investors -- almost everything else is contracting, or at a minimum, margins are contracting; that is one reason why Google sold Motorola to Lenovo. Google would much rather be in the digital economy of online advertising and online services than smartphone hardware. (Take note Microsoft and Apple.) How does the average investor invest in the digital economy? Besides stock in technology companies, which can be up, then down like, e.g., RIM a/k/a BlackBerry, or are overvalued, domain names can be parked, developed, leased, re-developed, and sold. Dot com domain names dominate the internet domain name marketplaces, and bring in the greatest dollars year in and year out, don't take my word for it, check it out for yourself.

Why dot com domain names and not other extensions? Only the dot com domain names have the global branding and power in the global marketplace. Instantly recognized and trusted, dot com domain names, unlike many other domain name extensions, are administered by the registry Verisign, under the jurisdiction of the United States government and US legal system. Virtually every global corporation, company, and business, in the world, with trademark, branding and competitive concerns, has their brand(s) on a dot com domain name. In fact, the .com extension was the only domain name extension originally intended for commercial (i.e., business) enterprises (whereas .gov was for government, .edu for education, etc.).

And unlike new gTLDs which are limited in scope, e.g., ".bike," ".car," ".tattoo," etc., the dot com extension is unlimited in scope--any and all business sectors utilize dot com names. Not only that, but the same dot com domain name can be used for completely different business purposes over time, allowing pivots, and multiple uses and users -- think of the various ways the name mint.com might be used. This increases inherent value, and only dot com domain names have established dominance in the domain marketplace with this inherent advantage.

Because a dot com domain name has recognition everywhere in the world (unlike 2 character country codes, business specific new gTLDs, etc.),  the potential domain name buyer pool is much larger compared to the limited number of buyers and users for all other domain name extensions. Am I saying only in the dot com naming space can one make money with domain names? Of course not. But unless you are willing to devote a lot of time and resources to develop a domain investment portfolio in another extension, I believe the investment potential in dot com domain names exceeds all other domain name extensions. (The foregoing is my personal opinion and does not constitute investment advice nor recommendations for specific investment--see disclaimer below).

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