Showing posts with label Intel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Intel. Show all posts

2019-05-11

Tech Review | How Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Each Hit $1 Trillion Valuation

graphic "Tech Review" ©2017 DomainMondo.com
Tech Review (TR 2019-05-11)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news: Features • 1) How Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Each Hit $1 Trillion Valuation, 2) 5G Hype, 3) Investing: The Week & Investor Notes, 4) ICYMI Tech News: Google, Amazon, YouTube, Verizon, Qualcomm, Intel, Apple, ASML, Pixel 3a.
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1) How Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Each Hit $1 Trillion Valuation

Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon are the first three publicly traded U.S. companies to hit $1 trillion in market value (market capitalization). WSJ’s Dan Gallagher explains how each company reached the milestone. Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) video above published May 6, 2019.

2) 5G Hype: 5G discussions are complex, convoluted, no one really knows what's happening:
source: statista.com
5G still has a long way to go and can't scale. The 5G network relies on mmWaves, whereas 4G LTE uses MHz.  T-Mobile's CTO Neville Ray: "Millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum has great potential in terms of speed and capacity, but it doesn’t travel far from the cell site and doesn’t penetrate materials at all. It will never materially scale beyond small pockets of 5G hotspots in dense urban environments."  

See also:

3) Investing
graphic: "INVESTING"  ©2017 DomainMondo.com
The Week: NASDAQ Composite -3.0% | S&P 500 Index -2.2% | DJIA -2.1%.

$UBER at market close on Friday (10 May 2019) was down -7.6% on its first day of trading after raising $8.1B in its IPO, which valued the company at about $82.4B.
Investor Notes: 

Gundlach warns Bear Market just getting started, "better than 50% chance"--China-US Trade Talks Collapse. China reportedly backtracked on almost all aspects of U.S. trade deal.

Warren Buffett calls the U.S. stock market “ridiculously cheap” (if interest rates stay at these low levels)--"Fed Model" indicates U.S. stocks are "cheap" relative to U.S. Treasury bonds--here’s the math: The spread between the S&P 500’s earnings yield -- a proxy for how much equities “pay” shareholders -- and the 10-year Treasury yield currently sits at 2.9 percentage points. (The wider it is, the cheaper are stocks.) While that difference began to expand significantly in December of last year and has come in a bit since, strip out the last five months and the relative payout of stocks over bonds is the highest since 2016. Also note Buffett's most recent annual letter (pdf):
“the annual change in Berkshire’s book value – which makes its farewell appearance on page 2 – is a metric that has lost the relevance it once had.
Europe: the Unbreakable, Unsustainable Eurozone--when the downturn happens, as it eventually will, the unsustainable will hit the unbreakable--ft.com. The EU sits between a rock and a hard place--politically unsustainable--fnlondon.com. Maybe Europe Can’t Recover From the Financial Crisis--The European Union’s flaws, cultural fragmentation and falling birth rates look like a formula for decline and there are number of signs that this pessimistic scenario will come to pass--Noah Smith in bloomberg.comHow Russia contaminated $2.7 billion of oil exports to Europe--contaminated oil found in Belarus, Poland, Germany, Ukraine and the Baltic port of Ust Luga, Druzhba network.

Someone Tell Theresa May and Parliament--“The Brexit horse has bolted”--UK banks told Reuters they would not reverse changes already made in preparation for Brexit, even if it was scrapped in a second referendum, nor would they financially support any future “Remain” or “Leave” campaigns. The banks have already transferred some client assets to new European Union legal entities, and moved about 2,000 jobs from London to offices in Dublin, Paris, Frankfurt and Madrid, thereby reducing costs of doing business in expensive London, and 'enhancing' the appeal of British banks to EU clients outside the UK. Instead, the bankers indicated they would continue to focus on future-proofing their businesses, updating technology, and expanding into new markets.

China VC: Sequoia Capital China, a widely viewed bellwether for Chinese tech investment, reportedly will lay off as much as 20 percent of its investment staff due to the slowdown in China's  tech sector.

Investors Beware the False Narratives:
"We make up stories in our minds and then against all evidence, defend them tooth and nail. Understanding why we do this is the key to discovering truth and making wiser decisions"--fs.blog

4) ICYMI Tech News:
graphic: "ICYMI Tech News" ©2017 DomainMondo.com
Google: transparency, choice and control in digital advertising--new protections and controls in Chrome--blog.google.

Amazon's new Blink XT2 smart camera cheaper than the original. AlsoWhy Amazon (video) is gobbling up failed malls in the U.S.

YouTube says it will make all of its original content free this fall, a strategy that its CBO says is in opposition to what other media companies are doing--Variety.com.

Verizon Looks to Unload Tumblr Blogging Site--another Marissa Mayer failed 'bright idea.' --
$VZ trying to steady a media business that has struggled to meet revenue targets.--wsj.com.

Qualcomm's Modems Are Faster And Better--seekingalpha.com. See also Intel's failure in 5G smartphone modems was just another point in a string of failures that will cost the company around $3 billion in revenues starting in 2020 ... "Avoid the stock as 2020 revenue estimates of $72 billion need to be cut"--seekingalpha.com.

Apple: EU to launch formal antitrust investigation into Apple in the next few weeks after Spotify accused the iPhone maker of “tilting the playing field to disadvantage competitors”--ft.com. See also
How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster--in interviews, current and former employees say brand building became more important than serving shoppers--bloomberg.com.

Dutch company ASML Granted Final Judgment by US Court Against XTAL for theft of trade secrets - $845 Million Awarded Will Be Uncollectible, But ASML Will Own XTAL IP--asml.com.

Less to lose? Germany's poorer East embraces tech revolution--reuters.com.

EU's Tusk warns of risks in rise of U.S. tech giants Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon: the European Union has been a leader in controlling how social media handle users' personal data, with rules known as GDPR introduced in May, 2018, giving regulators the power to impose fines of up to 4% of global revenues for violations.

Newspapers dying--for every reporter now, there are six PR workers, the US Census reports, and the number of PR flacks will continue rising, says Labor Department--bloomberg.com.

Personal tech: Google Pixel 3a: The $399 'Game Changing' Smartphone. Google also announced that this year and forward, all new Chromebook devices will be Linux ready--zdnet.com.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo


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2019-04-20

Tech Review | How Amazon $AMZN Could Disrupt Health Care (video)

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Tech Review (TR 2019-04-20)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news: Features • 1) How Amazon $AMZN Could Disrupt Health Care, 2) Why Food-Delivery Apps Could Leave Restaurants Footing the Bill, 3) Investing: The Week & Investor Notes, 4) ICYMI Tech News: Qualcomm, Apple, Intel, Pinterest, Zoom, Uber, Amazon, Microsoft.

1) How Amazon $AMZN Could Disrupt Health Care

"Amazon has been described has the “everything store, ” but it’s missing one major category - prescription medicines. That might soon change, in the wake of Amazon’s roughly $1 billion acquisition of PillPack, an internet pharmacy. Health experts told CNBC that it’s only a mater of time before Amazon starts selling prescription drugs on its online marketplace, and that it’s assembling a team to do just that. For Amazon, pharmacy represents a multibillion market opportunity, but it’s also highly complicated and will involve battling with some entrenched competition that has a vested interest in keeping drug prices high. But Amazon, with its scale, leverage, and supply chain expertise, could be the company to do it, the experts said. People buying medical supplies on Amazon, such as glucometers and cold medicine, can now use their flexible savings accounts or health savings accounts to get discounts. These programs, often referred to as an HSA or FSA, allow people with health insurance to set aside a portion of their salary before taxes to cover medical expenses that would have been paid for out-of-pocket, such as prescription medicines and medical supplies.

"In recent years, Amazon has started adding more health and wellness products, including medical devices and over-the-counter medicines. Amazon’s rival Walmart, which currently offers pharmacy services, also has a storefront for HSA and FSA products. To sell prescription medicines, Amazon will need to work with middlemen, known as pharmacy benefits managers, in order to take a customer’s insurance. Some health experts suggest that the move into adding HSA and FSA cards is a smart method for Amazon to learn more about people’s spending on health. “It’s a back end way for Amazon to learn about consumer purchasing behavior of health care products and services, as it moves more deeply into the space,” said Michael Yang, a health-tech investor with Omers Ventures.

"Some in the pharmacy world have speculated that Amazon will get into the space by initially focusing this segment of consumers that typically pays cash for their prescription medicine. That’s about 6 percent of the U.S. population, which is a chunk of the $450 billion pharmacy market."--CNBC.com video above published Apr 10, 2019.

2) Why Food-Delivery Apps Could Leave Restaurants Footing the Bill

America's love for take-out is spurring a boom in food delivery startups. But what's convenient for customers may not be good for restaurants reports the Wall Street Journal (wsj.com). Video above published Apr 5, 2019.

3) Investing
graphic: "INVESTING"  ©2017 DomainMondo.com
The Week: NASDAQ Composite +0.2% | S&P 500 Index -0.1% | DJIA +0.6%
Investor Notes: U.S. stock markets were closed on Friday, April 19, in observance of Good Friday. Good Friday is the only day U.S. markets are closed for the day that isn't also a federal (U.S.) holiday. The New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ will resume normal trading hours on Monday.

Cash Out, or Go All In: When Stocks Are Up 16% and It's Only April--bloomberg.com: “The first quarter’s rally would have been good enough to shut the whole year down and call it a day,” said Scott Colyer, chief investment officer at Advisors Asset Management. Even so, he says, “I’m paid to be a worrier. I look hard for signs that the markets are about to roll over every day. I don’t see them.”

S&P outperformance continues--bloomberg.com: U.S. investors are throwing in the towel on international stocks, diversification push fading.

Foreign investors sharply increased their holdings of US Treasury securities over December, January, and February, adding $185 billion, while ... American institutions and individuals are buying them at a ravenous clip--Who Bought the Huge $1.26 Trillion of New US Government Debt over the Past 12 Months?--WolfStreet.com.

Eurozone industrial production contracts for fourth straight month: Germany suffered 2% decline in February, Eurozone factories stuck in longest slump since debt crisis--telegraph.co.uk.

‘Flash Boys’ Trading Bots Are Running Wild on Crypto Exchanges-- Cornell Tech detects front running at decentralized exchanges. Researchers suggest impact could be in billions of dollars--bloomberg.com.

Brexit: “They’re all liars mate,” said my London cabbie. “May was a Remainer. How were we going to get a good deal when our negotiators don’t want to leave?” he asked. I shrugged. “They’ll stall until they can say it’s not what people want no more -- happened in every country that ever wanted a referendum or held one,” he said. “The EU paid to move a Land Rover factory from the Midlands to Slovakia where they earn 5 pound for every 25 we make – so our boys are out of work and the company makes more profit. How’s that right?,” he asked. “For every two pound we put into the EU, we get one back.” So I asked if Britain held another referendum, which way it’d go? “We’re split in two mate, we’re absolutely shattered.” --zerohedge.com.

Goldman Economists Say Trump Re-Election More Likely Than Not-- incumbency and state of economy help Trump’s chances--bloomberg.com. According to Nobel Prize winner, Robert Schiller, an election victory for President Donald Trump would not only boost the stock market but postpone the impending and imminent recession--zerohedge.com.

Global Migration of Millionaires | visualcapitalist.com: world’s wealthiest are the most mobile.
Biggest gainers: Australia +12,000; U.S. +10,000*; Canada +4000
*New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, and San Francisco all had inflows of over +1000
Biggest Losers: China -15,000; Russia -7000; India -5000; Turkey -4000.

4) ICYMI Tech News:
graphic: "ICYMI Tech News" ©2017 DomainMondo.com
Qualcomm hands Apple a stunning defeat--seekingalpha.com: Qualcomm has the only working 5G modem, and will be first to market this year, plus Qualcomm's rich 5G patent portfolio.

Intel to Exit 5G Smartphone Modem Business, Focus 5G Efforts on Network Infrastructure and Other Data-Centric Opportunities--newsroom.intel.com.

Apple: App Store Q1 downloads reportedly drop 5% YoY, first decline since 2015 --9to5mac.com.

Pinterest Inc IPO:
NYSE: PINS Thursday, April 18, 2019
Zoom Video Communications Inc IPO: 
NASDAQ: ZM Thursday, April 18, 2019
.Uber Discloses 3-Yr $10-Billion Loss from Operations, Stalling Rideshare Revenue & 50 Pages of “Risk Factors” that Are Not for the Squeamish--wolfstreet.com.

Amazon: retailers and Amazon.com-- major brands increasingly distribute clothing and accessories directly through Amazon.com, attracted by more than 100 million Amazon Prime members and Amazon logistics.

Microsoft A Better Buy Than Amazon? Microsoft's valuation is reasonable given its historical performance, growth potential, brand, and recession resilience.--seekingalpha.com.

Cable TV Cord-Cutting Is Quickly Picking Up Pace, while SVOD (subscription or streaming video on demand, e.g., Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc.) has reached 69% penetration of the US market.

College is Broken: Reflections and Predictions--hackernoon.com.

Personal Tech: Quitting social media liberated me--cbc.ca: 'I put down my phone and picked up my life.'

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo


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2018-08-09

How Intel Made Its World Record-Breaking Drone Show (video)

How Intel Made Its World Record-Breaking Drone Show

In the early morning on Sunday, July 15, 2018 Intel broke the Guinness World Record for simultaneously flying the most unmanned aerial vehicles with more than 2,000 drones. The previous record was held by China's Xi'an City Wall with drones made by EHang, which was set in April, 2018, with 1,374 drones.

50 Years of Record Breaking Innovation | Drone Light Show | Intel

To celebrate Intel’s 50th anniversary, the Intel drone team broke a world record, flying thousands of Shooting Star™ drones to create the biggest and brightest synchronized drone light show on earth. Intel video above first published Jul 23, 2018.

Experience the Team in Flight at PyeongChang 2018 | Intel

Intel video above first published Feb 9, 2018: The setting? PyeongChang, South Korea in freezing cold temperatures. The goal? Fly over 1200 Intel Shooting Star drones for a record-breaking performance. Follow the drone team’s journey to the Opening Ceremony and the first flight of its kind.

For more info on the tech:


feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo


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2018-07-28

Tech Review 1) Perils of Tech Stocks, 2) High Growth Tech Companies

graphic "Tech Review" ©2017 DomainMondo.com
Tech Review (TR 2018-07-28)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Perils of Tech Stocks, 2) High Growth Tech Companies, 3) Investing: The Week, Investing Notes: Another China Crisis Looming?, 4) ICYMI Tech News: Facebook, Bitcoin ETF, Qualcomm, Apple, Intel, Google Cloud, Q2 2018 Earnings, and more.

1) Perils of Tech Stocks

RBC Capital Market’s (rbccm.com) Senior Tech Analyst Mark Mahaney gives 10 lessons in 10 minutes about the stock market and investing in tech stocks at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech 2018. Fortune.com video above published Jul 17, 2018.

How Wall Street Is Reacting to Facebook's Q2 2018 Earnings effect on $FB shares this week:

On Thursday, 26 Jul 2018, Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) closed down 19% after the disappointing user numbers and revenue growth projections, losing almost $120 billion in market value in a day, and dragging the rest of the sector lower. Before Thursday, Facebook's largest single-day loss came in July 2012 when it shed 11 percent. The company missed projections on key metrics. See also Update: The Great Facebook GDPR Debacle.
Editor's note: Facebook $FB closed Friday at $174.89, DOWN -19.56% since Wednesday's close (graphic below). Twitter $TWTR closed DOWN -20.54% on Friday (Jul 27) at $34.12.
$FB
2) High Growth Tech Companies

a16z.com podcast with Elad Gil (@eladgil) and Chris Dixon (@cdixon): There's a lot of knowledge out there -- and networks of talent (especially in Silicon Valley) -- on what to do in the early stages of a company, going from 0 to 1, and even in going from 1 to 100... but what about beyond that? It's not as simply linear as merely doubling or tripling resources and org structures; it's actually much more complex on many levels, communication to coordination. Because with great scale comes great complexity... and many, many more places for things to break down.

How should founders/CEOs of growing tech startups think about everything from hiring (including key executives) to product management (what is it, really, beyond common myths/misconceptions around the role?) to thinking about late-stage financing, M&A, and other key aspects of building a company? This episode of the a16z Podcast shares both specific answers to -- and general mindsets for thinking about -- these questions. Chris Dixon, general partner on a16z crypto, interviews Elad Gil, investor/advisor to numerous tech companies; co-founder of Color Genomics; formerly of Google and also co-founder and CEO of Mixer Labs (acquired by Twitter, where he also became a VP). He's the author of the new book, The High Growth Handbook, on scaling companies from 10 to 10,000 people.

The two also explore the growth -- and evolution -- of market and tech trends, including the continuation of mobile/cloud; machine learning (and silicon); crypto; and finally, longevity -- both in the near term and further out in the future. Should people -- and even companies for that matter -- really live longer?

3) Investing
graphic: "INVESTING"  ©2017 DomainMondo.com
The Week: NASDAQ Composite -1.1% | S&P 500 Index +0.6% | DJIA +1.6% The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) booked weekly gains, but losses in the tech sector left the Nasdaq Composite lower for the week.
“As we discussed previously, what happens in the middle of the week is of little consequence to us. We are only truly interested in where the week ends"--Lance Roberts.
G.D.P. Grew at 4.1% Rate in U.S. Q2 2018: "Some economists think full-year growth in gross domestic product could hit 3 percent in 2018 for the first time in the nearly decade-long recovery, a prospect that became more likely following Friday’s strong numbers."--NYTimes.com 27 Jul 2018.

Wall Street's Charging Bull
graphic of Charging Bull | DomainMondo.com
Investing Notes: Another China Crisis Looming?

• As China Suffers Its Biggest Bankruptcy Of 2018, The PBOC Finally Panics--zerohedge.com, and
China steps up management of cross-border financial network and information services--reuters.com. See also China Caves: The Full Details Behind Beijing's Launch Of Fiscal Easing.

• China's devaluation of its currency:

China's renminbi hit by trade and economic woes: China's currency
has devalued sharply against the dollar (US$) in recent weeks. The last time China surprised the markets with a devaluation, in the summer of 2015, it prompted a global sell-off of risk assets. China’s currency has topped the Rmb6.8 per dollar mark, its weakest level in a year, reflecting slower growth and tighter credit. Financial Times (ft.com) video above published July 23, 2018.

4) ICYMI Tech News
graphic: "ICYMI Tech News" ©2017 DomainMondo.com
  • Facebook's plans for an innovation hub in China are apparently now off.
  • Bitcoin ETF: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday stood by a decision blocking Winklevoss bitcoin ETF--SEC.gov (pdf).
  • Qualcomm $QCOM says Apple $AAPL will use only modems from a competitor, likely Intel $INTC for next iPhone release, making iPhones slower than Android phones--CNET.com. Qualcomm also says it will drop its $44B offer and pay a $2B breakup fee to NXP since the latest deadline has passed with no approval from China--reuters.com.
  • Google Cloud: the full breadth of Google Cloud serverless technologies--cloud.google.com.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo


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2018-01-27

Tech Review | Is Google Done? 'Can No Longer Innovate' Says Ex-Googler

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Tech Review (TR 2018-01-27)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Is Google Done? 'Can No Longer Innovate' Says Ex-Googler, 2) Big Tech vs. Antitrust & Unfair Competition Laws, 3) Investing: The Week, Investing Notes, 4) ICYMI Tech News.

1)  Is Google Done? Google 'Can No Longer Innovate' Says Ex-Googler (Former Engineer)
Error message on Jan 25, 2018, to users of Google's Blogger platform worldwide 
Engineer Steve Yegge leaves Google after 13 years, saying Google has lost its way due to risk aversion, politics, arrogance, and a focus on competitors over customers--Why I left Google to join Grab – Steve Yegge | Medium.com: "The main reason I left Google is that they can no longer innovate. They’ve pretty much lost that ability. I believe there are several contributing factors, of which I’ll list four here. First, they’re conservative ... Gatekeeping and risk aversion at Google are the norm rather the exception. Second, they are mired in politics ... Third, Google is arrogant ... the company strategy is a mess ... But fourth, last, and probably worst of all, Google has become 100% competitor-focused rather than customer focused ...." (Read more at the link above. The post is insider confirmation of what most of us had already sensed or experienced about Google in recent years.)

Alphabet Inc. (Google) $GOOG $GOOGL. Q4 2017 results will be released Feb 1, 2018, after market close.

2) Big Tech vs. Antitrust & Unfair Competition Laws
EU Fines Qualcomm, Are Facebook and Amazon Next?

EU fines Qualcomm €997M for abusing market dominance, says $QCOM paid Apple to buy LTE baseband chipsets from Qualcomm exclusively; Qualcomm appeals.
See also HQ2 Much - Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) | SeekingAlpha.com by Scott Galloway: "I'm announcing a contest to decide which big tech firm should be broken up first. The finalists are Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) and Amazon [NASDAQ: AMZN], who both prioritize shareholders over the condition of our souls, or the country's prosperity."

3) Investing
graphic: "INVESTING"  ©2017 DomainMondo.com
The Week: Major U.S. stock indexes close at records as economy remains in growth mode | MarketWatch.com

Melt-Up? "Well, if there is such a thing as a "melt-up" then I suppose $58 billion in inflows over four weeks counts. One fund manager who spoke to Bloomberg this week described the mood over the past month as "totally insane" ..."--SeekingAlpha.com

Editor's note: The U.S. economy, stimulated by Trump's tax reforms, deregulation, and emphasis on U.S. domestic investment, could, in sum, easily handle an increase in Fed rates of 200 basis points or more. Ray Dalio says this "short-term stimulus" is producing a “12-to-18-month spurt, ... [during which] people feel stupid about holding cash," but instead, could we be looking at a 18-36 month "sprint"? Remember, Draghi and the ECB are dragging their heels, so that puts a brake on how fast the Fed will tighten, and at the same time, Draghi is scared of Mnuchin's cheap dollar. Read Steven Mnuchin vs. Mario Draghi: The ECB Loses | WSJ.com.

Why Didn't The Market React To The Government Shutdown Threat? | SeekingAlpha.com: "going to take more than yet another example of legislative ineptitude to do any lasting damage to this rally."

Investing Notes:
Q4 2017 Earnings Season on DomainMondo.com

4) ICYMI Tech News:
graphic: "ICYMI Tech News" ©2017 DomainMondo.com
  • Easy Come, Easy Go?  Apple discontinuing iPhone X in 2018?--mashable.com. See also:"disinterest in China is the main reason"--forbes.com
  • Whoops! Intel tells users to stop deploying buggy Spectre patch--TheVerge.com
Crypto Watch:
  • Scammers getting rich using social media, scam news sites, and private pump and dump group chats to spread false information about cryptocurrencies--buzzfeed.com
  • Stripe ends support for bitcoin payments April 23, citing volatility and long transaction times. Bitcoin had been supported since 2014--TechCrunch.com.
From the Reuters.com feed:

One Last Thing: 
The End of Blogs? "In 2015, Grantland, an ESPN venture with bloggy intimacy, was shuttered. In 2016, the indie women’s blog the Toast folded for lack of a financial future ... the beloved, uncategorizable blog TheAwl.com announced that it, along with its sister site, TheHairpin.com, would cease operations at the end of the month"--The New Yorker

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo


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2017-11-25

Tech Review | Tencent Reaches $500 Billion Market Capitalization (video)

graphic "Tech Review" ©2017 DomainMondo.com
Tech Review (TR 2017-11-25)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Tencent Reaches $500 Billion Market Capitalization, 2) Media & Advertising Disrupted, 3) Investing: Stock Indexes at Record Highs, Trump's First Year & Legacy, 4) ICYMI Tech News.

1) Tencent Reaches $500 Billion Market Capitalization

Tencent on Monday punched through a stock market capitalization of $500 billion, becoming the first Chinese technology company to join an elite group dominated by US corporations. Financial Times (ft.com) video above published Nov 20, 2017.
 Tencent
Tencent Holdings Limited (domain: tencent.com) is a Chinese investment holding conglomerate whose subsidiaries provide media, entertainment, social network, payment systems, smartphones, internet-related services, value-added services, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, property services, and online advertising services, principally in China. Global ambitions: will Tencent be as successful competing in the global marketplace as it is on China's state-controlled internet?
  • Tencent Holdings Ltd shares HKG: 0700 (pricing in HKDDisclaimer
  • Headquarters: Shenzhen, China
  • Revenue: 151.9 billion CNY (2016)
  • Subsidiaries: Supercell, China Literature, WeBank, MORE
  • Founders: Ma Huateng, Zhang Zhidong, Chen Yidan, Xu Chenye, Zeng Liqing
  • Tencent is the world's fifth-largest internet company by revenue according to wikipedia.org.
Tencent's killer app is WeChat (domain: wechat.com), a social mobile application with voice and text messaging service. It is the most popular social mobile application in China and some overseas Chinese communities, such as Malaysia. See: Tencent turns to WeChat, games and deals for global strategy"Malaysia the first foreign country to roll out its WeChat ecosystem," an executive told Reuters.com.

2)  Media & Advertising DisruptedWhy there's so much anxiety in the media business right now | CNN.com: "The digital advertising duopoly of Google and Facebook -- in which they take in 2017 about 90% of all the digital ad dollar growth -- drives everyone else in media to run tighter ships," said analyst Ken Doctor

See also:

3) Investing
graphic “Investing” ©2017 DomainMondo.com
The Week: Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. made this a short week for investors, but a time to reflect on the year and give thanks:
"... Donald Trump is a lucky guy, and the economy during his first year in office has been a dream cocktail of favorable results. Real growth has increased from 2% over the past few years to 3% in the second and third quarters. (The third quarter was a real surprise. Everyone expected growth at 2% or below because of hurricanes Irma and Harvey.) Inflation is tame at 2%, very low for the late stage of an expansion (unless this isn’t a late stage). The 10-year U.S. Treasury is yielding a very unthreatening 2.4%, the unemployment rate is just over 4% and looks like it is headed into the 3% range, household net worth is at an all-time high, consumer confidence is at a 15-year high and the Standard & Poor’s 500 is at an all-time high. That’s a pretty good set of statistics for less than a year in office. Perhaps giving President Trump credit for all of it isn’t right, but it did occur on his watch ..."--Byron Wien Commentary | blackstone.com (excerpt)(emphasis added)
For the week ending Friday Nov 24, 2017, U.S. stocks: the S&P 500, NASDAQ, and Russell 2000, all end the week at all-time record highs--MarketWatch.com and S&P 500 closes above 2,600 for first time | CNBC.com.

Investing Notes:
  • Tax Bill: "After I saw that tax bill, I lost hope with the drain the swamp concept, the swamp keeps getting bigger."--DoubleLine's Jeffrey Gundlach. See also: The Republican Tax Plan Is Very Swampy | ZeroHedge.com.
  • Wall Street Betting on Tax Reform Passing? "Key point about the Shiller PE is therefore NOT that stocks are expensive. Rather, it is that markets expect inflation/interest rates to remain low and corporate earnings to stay elevated."--datatrekresearch.com 
  • Trump's Legacy: "Tax reform and the end of year spending deal will consume all of Washington's oxygen until the end of the year" but next week the Senate is scheduled to confirm President Trump's ninth judicial appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals this year, which beats President Reagan's eight  in his first year, and President Obama's three in his first year in office. "This [judicial appointments] will be the single most important legacy of the Trump administration"--Sen. Chris Coons, Delaware Democrat and Senate Judiciary Committee member.--BusinessInsider.com
  • Goldman Sachs says 2017 was surprisingly good, 2018 will be more of the same"2017 is shaping up to be the first year of the expansion in which growth surprises to the upside ... We expect 2018 to deliver more of the same"--Goldman analyst Charles Himmelberg--cnbc.com.
  • Trump & China: Don't "be lulled by Trump's public praise of President Xi. Behind the scenes, [Trade Rep] Lighthizer's arguments are winning the day"--Axios.com.
  • Bitcoin: “Can you live without bitcoins? Yes. Could you live without tulips in the Netherlands? Yes,” said Sankaran Naren, CIO of ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company, at the Reuters Summit in Mumbai--Bubbly bitcoin not worth the wager: investors | Reuters.com.
  • Short $TSLA"Put it this way," short seller Jim Chanos said, "if you wouldn't be short a multi-billion-dollar loss-making enterprise in a cyclical business, with a leveraged balance sheet, questionable accounting, every executive leaving, run by a CEO with a questionable relationship with the truth, what would you be short? It sort of ticks all the boxes" --cnbc.com. See also: Bloomberg.com--Tesla’s Burning Through Nearly Half a Million Dollars Every Hour--"By this calculation, Tesla would exhaust cash on Aug. 6, [2018]."
  • $INTC--SeekingAlpha.com: Chromebooks--One Good Reason To Like Intel
  • 'The fear is gone,' boom-time complacency tops investors' worry list--Reuters.com.

4) ICYMI Tech News:
  • Amazon's Last Mile | gizmodo.com: "... plainclothes contractors with few labor protections, driving their own cars, competing for shifts on the company’s own Uber-like platform ... In terms of size, efficiency, and ruthlessness, Amazon has few equals ... "
  • Qualcomm to Win EU Approval for NXP Deal by End of Year--Bloomberg.com.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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