Tech Review | Crypto & Blockchain Investing: 'Don't Buy Bitcoin, Do This'

Tech Review (TR 2019-04-06)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news: Features • 1) Crypto & Blockchain Investing: 'Don't Buy Bitcoin, Do This', 2)How Instagram And Facebook Make Money, 3) Investing: The Week & Investor Notes, 4) ICYMI Tech News: Amazon, Apple, Google, and more.

1) Crypto & Blockchain Investing: 'Don't Buy Bitcoin, Do This'

"Don't Buy Bitcoin. Do This Instead"--Peter Mallouk. "It's not a real investment," says certified financial planner Peter Mallouk. "It's speculation." CNBC.com video above published Apr 4, 2019.

2) How Instagram and Facebook Make Money

Everyday more than 2 billion people use Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or Messenger, more than a quarter of the world's population. Despite a rising number of privacy scandals and public backlash — Facebook is still growing. Since its apps are free to use, Facebook sells advertising to make money. Here's how the company's advertising model works. CNBC.com video published Apr 2, 2019.

3) Investing

The Week: NASDAQ Composite +2.7% | S&P 500 Index +2.1% | DJIA +1.5%

The S&P 500 Index Now Up 15.4% YTD (as of 5 Apr 2019)

Investor Notes: U.S. Jobless Claims Fall to 49-Year Low, Below All Forecasts.

But "Synchronized Global Growth Has Collapsed"--Why Deutsche Just Downgraded Caterpillar.

EU: German Manufacturing Collapse: "Awful" Industrial Orders Plunge Most Since Financial Crisis.

Why Global Bond Market Investors Are Nervous: The European Central Bank has little margin to lower rates further, after the infusion of 2.6 trillion euros ($2.9 trillion) into the euro-zone economy through its bond-buying program, driving yields in Germany and the other most credit-worthy members below zero, in what some call a Japanification of the fixed-income market. Also: speculating against “the most distorted asset class in the world” caused Hugh Hendry to close his Eclectica hedge fund in September 2017, after the German two-year note confounded his expectations. Since then, that short-dated yield has averaged minus 0.6 percent, about where it was when Hendry decided to shut up shop, and near where it rests today.

Brexit: The value of the customs union to the UK is overrated--The customs union works well for German carmakers and French farmers, who have had a captive market for their products, but has not delivered anything like that for the UK.--theguardian.com.

US 'Tax Avoidance' Schemes: Wall Street’s “Dirty Little Secret” the ETF Tax Dodge--Banks pumping billions of dollars into and out of funds with “heartbeat” trades.--bloomberg.com.

4) ICYMI Tech News:

Amazon at Scale: the Enormous Numbers Behind Amazon’s Market Reach. $AMZN Post-Marital Bliss: Jeff Bezos's ex-wife, MacKenzie Bezos, tweeted details of their divorce settlement that gives Jeff 75% of their Amazon stock and all of their shares' voting power (at least for now, further details not provided).

Apple: services group could add an additional $25 billion in gross profit by 2023. Also Apple pulls plug on its wireless charging mat.

Google made $6.5 billion from sources other than ads in Q4 2018, an increase of 30% year-over-year, while Google's ad business is growing at 20% year-over-year. New revenue sources include Google Cloud, hardware, and Google's Play store--seekingalpha.com.

MIT is the latest top U.S. education institution to cuts ties with Chinese tech firms Huawei and ZTE, while UK's Oxford University has also stopped accepting funding from Huawei..

WeWork's $1.9 Billion Loss Is A Typical Tech Bubble 2.0 Story--zerohedge.com.

Germany's Daimler has filed a complaint with EU antitrust regulators about Nokia patents essential to car communications.

Personal Tech: 

1. Why Can't I Get a Decent Stock Android Smartphone With No Apps Pre-Installed?

"Android ecosystem of pre-installed apps is a privacy and security mess"--extensive academic study finds data-harvesting and malware-laced pre-installed apps.--zdnet.com and An Analysis of Pre-installed Android Software (pdf). 

See also Android Security & Privacy Year 2018 in Review (pdf) and blog.google.

2. The next 15 years of Gmail | blog.google

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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Tech Review | Analysts Giving Up On Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency

Tech Review (TR 2019-02-02)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news: Features • 1) Giving Up On Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency, 2) Amazon Alexa And Google Assistant Becoming Omnipresent, 3) Investing: The Week & Notes: WEF, EU, Brexit, US, 4)ICYMI Tech News: Facebook, Nvidia, Twitter, Google, Oracle, Huawei, China VC, Microsoft, Amazon, Startup Starbreeze Implodes, Personal Tech: Chromebooks vs Windows?

1) Giving Up On Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin in US$

Bitcoin Volatility Problematic For Analysts: Crypto enthusiasts such as Mike Novogratz made wild predictions on Bitcoin's price in 2018, most of which proved wrong. Tom Lee of Fundstrat said Bitcoin would hit $25,000 by end of 2018. It didn't happen. Now, Lee, and others, are not making timing calls at all. 2019 is off to a rough start for cryptocurrencies, with most coins continuing their downturn in January.

However, Ripple CEO says decentralized payment systems are likely to win:

Ripple's Brad Garlinghouse discusses blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies at a CNBC-hosted panel in Paris. CNBC International TV video above published Jan 31, 2019.

Ripple supports tokens representing fiat currency, cryptocurrency, commodities, or other units of value such as frequent flier miles or mobile minutes. Ripple purports to enable "secure, instantly and nearly free global financial transactions of any size with no chargebacks." The ledger employs the decentralized native cryptocurrency known as XRP, which as of September 2018 was the second largest coin by market capitalization. Ripple has been adopted by banks and payment networks as settlement infrastructure technology (sources via Wikipedia.org).

Building Crypto, from Vision to Reality

a16z.com video (podcast) above with Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong), Chris Dixon (@cdixon), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) Where are we, really, right now -- in terms of what we can/ can't do with crypto today? And what will it take to get from vision to mainstream reality? This episode of the a16z Podcast covers all this and more. It's based on a conversation that took place between Coinbase CEO and cofounder Brian Armstrong and a16z crypto general partner Chris Dixon, interviewed by a16z editor in chief Sonal Chokshi, at our at our annual Summit in November 2018 -- following a series of presentations that covered everything from early adoption, myths, and the global need for crypto; to crypto as seen through the lens of trust; to key terms and concepts that enable entirely new use cases on top of crypto. But what are the missing pieces needed to get us there? Is crypto is too much like a religion... and if so, how does one build a company, culture, community in such an intense environment? Where does the history of open source come in? And finally, what are some of the most interesting applications and trends in the space? Video above published Jan 1, 2019. Disclosures.

See also:

• "Participation by financial institutions in bitcoin trading appears to be fading," JPMorgan analysts wrote in a research note to clients--forbes.com
• Bitcoin Is Worth Less Than the Cost to Mine It, JPMorgan Says--
bloomberg.com.
• JP Morgan: Blockchain Needs To Be Separated From Bitcoin & Crypto--ethereumworldnews.com.
• Bitcoin Failed as a Safe Haven to the U.S. Stock Market: JP Morgan--newsbtc.com.
•  Bloomberg Technology video published Jan 30, 2019.
• Three reasons why you should stay away from bitcoin!--Bitcoin has bit the dust--zerohedge.com.

2) Amazon Alexa And Google Assistant Becoming Omnipresent

Until recently, Amazon $AMZN and Google $GOOG $GOOGL competed for presence in our homes through their own hardware: smart speakers like the Amazon Echo and Google Home, TV add-ons like Chromecast and Fire TV and even home security systems like Nest and Ring. At CES 2019, partners from both companies launched dozens of new products that will bring Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant into nearly every aspect of our lives. Both firms also revealed how widespread their ecosystems are.

Google said that by the end of January, more than 1 billion devices will have Google Assistant built-in. That's up from 500 million in May, but a lot of that growth is because Assistant now ships as a standard feature on Android phones. Google Assistant is also built into 10,000 different smart home devices from more than 1,600 brands, the company said.

Amazon said there are now more than 150 products with Alexa built directly in — which means you can talk right to it without also owning an Echo — and more than 28,000 products from 4,500 brands that support it. That means you need an Amazon Echo to control the gadget. Amazon also said it has now sold more than 100 million Alexa devices. CNBC.com video above published Jan 13, 2019.

3) Investing

The Week: NASDAQ Composite +1.4% | S&P 500 Index +1.6% | DJIA +1.3%

Investing Notes: the benchmark S&P 500 Index is UP 8% so far in 2019.

WEF a dud and joke: "This year's now-concluded World Economic Forum conference in Davos was mostly a dud and increasingly a joke in financial circles, with Deutsche Bank's Jim Reid going so far as admitting that 'we had a DB drinks reception for our clients last night and one said to me that in 11 years of coming here the best advice would be to trade in the opposite direction to the main theme of the conference over the next 12 months'"--zerohedge.com. Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz  was heckled after he said he might run for U.S. president:“Go back to Davos with the rest of the billionaire elite who think they know how to run the world.”

EU: France's ‘Yellow Vests Movement"--Mouvement des gilets jaunes--should be taken seriously says AXA CEO--in a CNBC International TV video published Jan 26, 2019, AXA CEO Thomas Buberl says Europe’s social contract isn’t working anymore.

• France: the November 2018 data shows unemployment at 8.9%, well above the 6.7% EU rate. Current levels are also above prior cycle lows of 7.2% in February 2008.
• Italy: unemployment currently sits at 10.5%, far above the EU’s 6.7%. The prior cycle low in Italy was 5.8% in April 2007.
• Spain: unemployment remains stubbornly high, 14.7% based on the November 2018 data. The lows from May 2007 were 8.0%. 

Above data via DataTrekResearch.com:

• The Eurozone problem: with German unemployment at just 3.3%, how does the European Central Bank consider normalizing both interest rates and its balance sheet when systematically important Eurozone economies like France, Italy and Spain remain at essentially recessionary levels of unemployment?
• What are the political ramifications of high unemployment across these large countries? See "Yellow Vests Movement" (above) for the answer.
• "Personally, I just don’t think Europe works – its imbalanced in favour of the few."--Bill Blain.

Brexit? Christian Ulbrich, global chief executive of JLL, the property agency, told Financial News  that his company leased more space in the City of London 'Square Mile' during the final three months of 2018 than in any other quarter on record. CBRE also reported 3.9 million sq ft of deals had closed across all of central London during the quarter, above the 10-year average.

US: Every year, roughly 14% of the US population moves from one state to another, according to US Census Bureau data--top inbound states (dark blue) and top outbound states (medium blue):

source: 2018 Migration Report | northamerican.com (pdf)

Apparently, Americans don't like high-tax states like Illinois, California, New Jersey and New York, but prefer living in Idaho, Arizona, South Carolina, Tennessee, North Carolina, Texas, and Florida. Also note U.S. jobless rates across the largest 5 US states (December 2018 data): California: 4.2%; New York: 3.9%; Pennsylvania: 4.2%; Texas: 3.7%; Florida: 3.3%. The national unemployment rate:  3.9%.

4) ICYMI Tech News:

Facebook: "Even after losing roughly a third of its market cap, Facebook $FB may yet prove to be one of the great shorts of all time"--The Fall of Facebook Has Only Begun--medium.com. Also: Facebook knowingly duped game-playing kids and their parents out of money--revealnews.org.

Nvidia Jan 28 Financial Guidance: "deteriorating macroeconomic conditions, particularly in China, impacted consumer demand for NVIDIA gaming GPUs"--NVDA shares fall 14% and are now off 44% since Jan 29, 2018 (as of Jan 28, 2019):

Nvidia's Problems May Grow Worse--seekingalpha.com.

Twitter’s CEO keeps "substituting talking for doing"--Jack Dorsey has a lot to say, but he has more to do--theverge.com.  Twitter, Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) will release financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2018 on February 7, 2019, before the market open at approximately 7:00 am EST. Twitter will host a conference call / LIVE webcast to discuss these financial results at 8:00 am EST, at investor.twitterinc.com. Tweet your question to @TwitterIR using #TWTR.

Google LLC vs Oracle America, Inc., software copyright dispute, Petition for a Writ of Certiorari (pdf) in the US Supreme Court.

U.S. Indicts Huawei--accused of stealing trade secrets, defrauding banks--bloomberg.com. See also "Huawei will struggle to assuage western concerns - Suspicions are as much about China’s system as about the company itself"--ft.com.

China VC: "The number of China’s venture capital deals dropped to 713 in the fourth quarter of 2018, down 25% from a year earlier, with the amount of funding shrinking 12% to $18.3 billion ... Competition for job vacancies has intensified with an average applicants-to-jobs ratio of 32 to 1."--scmp.com.

Walmart, Amazon scrambling to comply with India's new e-commerce rules--reuters.com.

Startup Starbreeze implodes: "How did things go so badly wrong in such a short space of time? According to over a dozen current and former Starbreeze (starbreeze.com) staff members, who asked to remain anonymous in order to protect their careers, the writing had been on the wall for some time. But even as staff lost faith in the studio and its bosses, nobody, it seemed, thought Starbreeze's fall from grace would turn out to be quite so dramatic."--eurogamer.net. “How did you go bankrupt?" Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.--Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises.

Personal Tech: after January 14, 2020, Microsoft will no longer provide security updates or support for PCs running Windows 7 (unless you pay extra), so for many Windows 7 users, it will be decision time (Microsoft Windows 10, Apple Mac OS, Google Chrome OS, or Linux) during the next 12 months. Editor's note: personally, I am transitioning to Google Chrome OS (Chromebooks) and recommend the two chromebooks I am familiar with: Google Pixelbook and Acer Chromebook 15.  There are plenty of other nice chromebooks available, but no matter your budget, be sure to get at least 4GB of RAM, and do your own due diligence, e.g., https://www.reddit.com/r/Pixelbook.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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Tech Review: 1) Apple's Core Problems, 2) High Tech Wars of the Future

Tech Review (TR 2018-11-24)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Apple's Core Problems,  2) High Tech Wars of the Future, 3) Investing: The Week, Investing Notes,  4) ICYMI Tech News.

1) Tech Share Rout: Apple's Core Problems

The iPhone maker, Apple (apple.com) $AAPL, has been hit as investors worry over sales and US-China tensions. Financial Times (ft.com) video above published Nov 21, 2018.

NASDAQ: AAPL:

2) High Tech Wars of the Future

U.S. scientists prepare for high-tech wars of the future: the U.S. is investing in robotics and artificial intelligence as it races against China to develop the weapons of the future. The FT.com’s US foreign policy and defense correspondent Katrina Manson visits the US Army Research Lab to meet the scientists working on the latest tech developments. Financial Times (ft.com) video above published Nov 16, 2018.

3) Investing

The Week: NASDAQ Composite -4.3% | S&P 500 Index -2.8% | DJIA -4.4%

Headwinds   ©2018 DomainMondo.com

Investing Notes:

The forward 12-month P/E ratio for $SPX is 15.6. This P/E ratio is below the 5-year average (16.4) but above the 10-year average (14.5). https://t.co/7jjo6kg2yS pic.twitter.com/Sn372WU04z

— FactSet (@FactSet) November 19, 2018

• Jim Chanos's Kynikos Associates LP buys Vanguard S&P 500, Vanguard Value, iShares S&P Mid-Cap 400 Growth--gurufocus.com
• EU troubles: Eurozone, Italy, Immigration, and Brexit--Editor's note: why invest in someone else's mess?
• China: more nations voice concerns over Chinese investment--'here, borrow some money from us'--chinaeconomicreview.com. Editor's note: a/k/a the Chinese "Extortionate Debt Trap."
• Bitcoin hit its lowest level in more than a year on Monday, falling under $5,000, while the entire cryptocurrency market cap lost about $40 Billion in the prior week--cnbc.com. Editor's note: until such time as Bitcoin, or some other crypto, becomes "legal tender" in a respected jurisdiction (sorry Venezuela doesn't qualify), the entire market is pure speculation subject to multiple scams. The U.S. government (CFTC) treats cryptocurrencies as commodities and the IRS taxes them as "property" Have you reported your crypto holdings and transactions, paid applicable property taxes on your holdings, and applicable income taxes? Oh, and by the way, the U.S. government does not accept any crypto as payment for taxes.

4) ICYMI Tech News:

Not All Clouds Are Equal: Key findings of the 2018 ThousandEyes Public Cloud Performance Benchmark Report: "Architectural differences between providers impacts service delivery: AWS (Amazon) sends traffic over the Internet for the majority of the service delivery path, whereas GCP (Google) and Azure (Microsoft) do not, instead using their own backbone networks. Increased exposure to the Internet means there is greater operational risk and impact on performance predictability ..." Learn more: Download the 2018 ThousandEyes Public Cloud Performance Benchmark Report; also Register for the webinar, "Cloud Wars: Performance Benchmarking AWS, GCP and Azure," taking place December 6, 2018 at 10:00 AM PST.

Apple CEO Tim Cook: new regulations on the tech industry ‘inevitable’--"Generally speaking, I am not a big fan of regulation," Cook told Axios on HBO. "I'm a big believer in the free market, but we have to admit when the free market is not working. And it hasn't worked here." See also Washington pummels Facebook: ‘Big tech can no longer be trusted’--recode.net.

US-based Kroger and UK-based Ocado to build first robotic warehouse in Cincinnati in a joint effort to dominate the U.S. grocery delivery business--reuters.com.

US tops world in internet development, with China in second place, said China's Academy of Cyberspace Studies, an institute affiliated with the Cyberspace Administration of China, in its second annual World Internet Development Report. According to the report, the US leads in innovation, industry development and security. Also four U.S. companies, Tesla, Amazon, Microsoft and Qualcomm, were the only non-Chinese companies receiving special mentions at China's recent World Internet Conference 2018 in Wuzhen, along with eleven Chinese companies--scmp.com.  

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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Tech Review | Future Finance: Smart Contracts on the Blockchain (video)

Tech Review (TR 2018-10-20)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Future Finance: Smart Contracts on the Blockchain, 2) Bitcoin Detectives: Cracking the ​Blockchain, 3) Investing: The Week, Investing Notes: US, Europe, China, 4) ICYMI Tech News: Amazon AWS JEDI & HQ2, Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter, Wirecard.

1) "Future Finance" Forum 2018: Smart Contracts on the Blockchain

A lively panel discussion on the divergence in the blockchain ecosystem between cryptocurrencies and other private permission systems and how smart contracts are evolving, moderated by Ray Chan, Senior Correspondent, FinanceAsia, with Panelists: Paul Sin, Consulting Partner, Deloitte, Angelina Kwan, Managing Director, Head of Regulatory Compliance, HKEX, Joshua Kroeker, Blockchain/DLT Lead, Global Commercial Banking, HSBC, Lawrence Ma, President, HK Blockchain Society, Douglas W. Arner, Professor, Faculty of Law, The University of Hong Kong. The session was filmed at the "Future Finance - Adapting to Disruption" Forum held at Island Shangri-La Hong Kong on Wednesday, 7th February 2018. Thomson Reuters video published Oct 5, 2018.

See also: From Farm to Blockchain: Walmart Tracks Its Lettuce | NYTimes.com Sep 24, 2018: The giant retailer will begin requiring lettuce and spinach suppliers to contribute to a blockchain database that can rapidly pinpoint contamination.

2) Bitcoin Detectives: Cracking the ​Blockchain

The cryptocurrency Bitcoin has a problem as old as money itself​ -- theft​. And that's giving rise to a new profession: bitcoin detectives like Kim Nilsson, a victim of the massive Mt. Gox exchange hack.

3) Investing

The Week: NASDAQ Composite -0.6% | S&P 500 Index +0.02%  | DJIA +0.4%

Wall Street's Charging Bull

Investing Notes: US, Europe and China

• US is the most competitive country in the world--regaining the No. 1 spot for the first time since 2008 in an index produced by the World Economic Forum--WSJ.com. 
• Eurozone: ECB's "Bubble” Warning--WolfStreet.com: "After it Caused the Most Absurd Bond Bubble Ever." See also: Bavaria election (video) clear signal the center is moving to the fringes in Germany.
• Brexit: How 4 Experts Think It'll Impact Business (video). Four scenarios (graphic).
• EU: VC investment in European startups plunged 21% in Q3 2018--even with Brexit looming, startups in the United Kingdom were still number one, raising 43 percent ($2.3 billion) of the total capital in Q3, accounting for 32 percent (215) of the deals. France ranked a distant second in terms of venture capital raised, $679 million, and third in number of deals (78). Germany was third in amount raised, $631 million, and second in number of deals (83).--Dow Jones VentureSource Venture Capital Report - Europe Q3 2018 (pdf).
• China: "Most surveyed companies are now experiencing unprecedented difficulties and have become increasingly pessimistic about business prospects for the next six months ... For most, business has never been worse."--Li Wei, economics professor at CKGSB. See also: China May Have $5.8 Trillion in Hidden Debt With ‘Titanic’ Risks--Bloomberg.com.

4) ICYMI Tech News:

• Amazon $AMZN: Amazon Web Services (AWS) is widely seen as front-runner in the race to win the US DOD $10 billion cloud-computing contract [JEDI]. Alphabet Inc. a/k/a Google withdrew last week, leaving AWS, IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft vying for the contract. Amazon Chairman & CEO Jeff Bezos said Monday at the Wired 25 Summit in San Francisco:

"If U.S. tech companies turn their backs on the Department of Defense, this country is in trouble. This is a great country and it does need to be defended." 

[Editor's note: most likely outcome? AWS wins JEDI contract, and a suburban Washington, D.C., location (northern Virginia) is chosen for Amazon HQ2.]

• Facebook $FB: Fb.gg online gaming hub expands to mobile with the launch of the beta version of a standalone Android app--techcrunch.com.

• Google $GOOGL: Google's real-time translations now available on Android phones and all Assistant-optimized headphones, not just Google Pixel Buds--droid-life.com. See also Android is dirty word?  ‘Android’ wasn’t said a single time during the Google Pixel 3 event--9to5google.com.

• Apple $AAPL reportedly cut Chinese iPhone repair fraud with hidden dyes and software.

• Twitter $TWTR under formal GDPR investigation for how it tracks users--fortune.com. See also--Twitter: Is Engagement Enough? Nope--SeekingAlpha.com.

• Wirecard (WDIG.DE), German fintech company expects core profits to grow sixfold by the middle of the next decade thanks to a boom in e-commerce and digital payments--reuters.com.

• A Lesson for Media & Tech: Dead Meat Walking: Why Sears Will Be Liquidated | WolfStreet.com: Bankruptcy can only restructure debts; it cannot revive mutilated brands and bring back mauled customers.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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Coinbase's Vision Beyond Bitcoin (video)

Coinbase's Vision Goes Beyond Bitcoin

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong talks about the future of the U.S.'s biggest cryptocurrency exchange. Fortune.com video above published Sep 28, 2018:

Coinbase (coinbase.com) is a privately held digital currency exchange headquartered in San Francisco, California, brokering exchanges of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic and Litecoin with fiat currencies in over 30 countries, and bitcoin transactions and storage in 190 countries worldwide.

• CEO: Brian Armstrong (Jun 20, 2012–)
• Founded: June 2012
• Founders: Brian Armstrong, Fred Ehrsam

Tweets by coinbase

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Tech Review: Digital Outdoor Advertising Growth Due To GDPR? (video)

Tech Review (TR 2018-09-29)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Digital Outdoor Advertising Growth Due To GDPR? 2) What Is Fintech? 3) Investing: The Week, Investing Notes: US, China, Trump & Trade Tariffs, 4) ICYMI Tech News.

1) Digital Outdoor Advertising is growing steadily, is GDPR one of the reasons?

Digitization of traditional outdoor advertising has contributed to the healthy growth of the "Out of Home" advertising sector, says Aidan Neill, co-founder of bitposter.co. There are other reasons, too, such as the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which became enforceable May 25, 2018. CNBC.com video above published Sep 24, 2018. Other companies mentioned: clearchannel.com and jcdecaux.com.

2) What is fintech? 

What is fintech all about? It’s a multi-billion dollar industry that’s changing everything from how we make purchases to how we get loans.

3) Investing

The Week: NASDAQ Composite +0.7% | S&P 500 Index -0.5% | DJIA -1.1% 

Q3 2018: S&P 500 posts strongest quarter since 2013.

"Economic progress continues in the United States … the data coming in is some of the strongest we have seen in this cycle ... let’s start with valuation ... [S&P 500] is selling at 17 times earnings, substantially below the peak multiples reached at the end of the last century or in 2007. Using my dividend discount model ... the index is now slightly above equilibrium, or fair value. In terms of sentiment, investors are optimistic, but not as euphoric as they were in January. These factors would argue that the market could move somewhat higher, but that a major surge is unlikely … weak markets elsewhere in the world don’t necessarily have a negative impact on the United States … One of the most important tenets of my current view is that the next recession will probably not occur until after the election in 2020 ..."--Byron Wien, Blackrock.com, Sep 25, 2018.

Wall Street's Charging Bull

Investing Notes: US, China, Trump & Trade Tariffs

The US and China are in a 'classic game of chicken' says Professor

Professor James Crabtree of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy explains the political dynamics coming from both the U.S. and China: US consumers are not going to feel any impact from tariffs for quite a long time. CNBC.com video published Sep 24, 2018.

The US has an 'extremely strong economy'

CNBC.com video above published Sep 24, 2018: Todd "Bubba" Horwitz of BubbaTrading.com says the U.S. could "survive without anybody if we had to," and he's not worried about tariffs or Trump's stance on China's theft of intellectual property and unfair treatment of U.S. companies.

DAILY BRIEF:

- Household debt hits all-time high
- China’s industrial profits fall to 4-month low
- London-Shanghai stock link could be ready by December
- Turkey becomes new investment target
- WeChat Pay to allow HK users to make mainland paymentshttps://t.co/Fw6d0xv8mD

— ChinaEconomicReview (@chinaeconreview) September 28, 2018

4) ICYMI Tech News:

• Amazon $AMZN still is the largest cloud provider at 34% market share, but Microsoft $MSFT at 14% share, is ahead of IBM $IBM 8%, Google $GOOGL $GOOG 6%, and Alibaba $BABA 4%, according to Synergy Research Group . Microsoft announced in July a five-year deal with Walmart $WMT to use Microsoft's cloud and AI tech. Microsoft's Intelligent Cloud revenues grew 23% in its fiscal Q4 to $9.61 billion and its Azure cloud business increased by 89%. Microsoft still maintains a strong position as software and hardware provider, while expanding into artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and IoT. Microsoft's acquisitions include LinkedIn and GitHub.

• Apple $AAPL completes deal to buy Shazam (shazam.com)--reuters.com.

• WeChat Pay vs. Alipay mobile payments: Tencent & Alibaba chase remittances in battle for Southeast Asia | reuters.com.

• Bitcoin prices may not have hit rock bottom yet, says Cboe options expert | MarketWatch.com.

• Media Madness: Comcast $CMCSA bid $40 billion for control of Sky;  Walt Disney $DIS probably paid too much for parts of Rupert Murdoch’s empire, including a stake in Sky, so selling that stake to Comcast would reduce Disney's debt to better battle streaming rivals like Netflix $NFLX. See Fox and Disney selling stake in Sky to Comcast--TheHill.com.

• Quantum Computing meeting at the White House: National Strategic Overview For Quantum Information Science | WhiteHouse.gov (pdf). 

• Personal Tech: Remove yourself from people search sites and erase your online presence | ZDNet.com--a step-by-step guide to reducing your digital footprint online, whether you want to lock down data or vanish entirely.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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Tech Review 1) Silicon Valley & Tech Obsessions, 2) Innovation & AI (video)

Tech Review (TR 2018-07-21)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Silicon Valley & Tech Obsessions, 2) Innovation & AI, 3) Investing: The Week, Investing Notes: Stick with the Winners, 4) ICYMI Tech News: Google, Amazon, and more.

1) Silicon Valley & Tech Obsessions

Silicon Valley Renegades Take On Tech ​Obsessions: some of the engineers and designers who helped build our most commonly used technology​, including Aza Raskin and Tristan Harris, ​are fighting back against how it’s taking over our lives. ​Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) video above published Jul 2, 2018.

2) Innovation and Artificial Intelligence (AI): An Era of Profound Change

In an age of start-ups and disruptors, innovation is the prime catalyst for profound changes to the business world. But what does 'innovation' truly mean - besides being an easy, clichéd buzzword trotted out by entrepreneurs looking for investment?

The philosopher Luc Ferry, innovation specialist and France's former Minister for Youth, National Education and Research, has taken a special interest in this theme. He discussed this with Christophe Donay, the Chief Strategist and Head of Asset Allocation and Macroeconomic Research at Pictet Wealth Management, at its innovation event in Geneva. The above is a FT.com Content Solutions video published Jul 11, 2018.

3) Investing

The Week: NASDAQ Composite -0- | S&P 500 Index -0- | DJIA +0.2%

Investing Notes: "Stick with the Winners"

BlackRock clients have zero interest in crypto, Larry Fink says: "I don’t believe any client has sought out crypto exposure" https://t.co/UTRMIqqkVO pic.twitter.com/3REuBEI1vg

— Bloomberg (@business) July 16, 2018

Hedge Fund Billionaire Griffin Knocks Bitcoin

CNBC.com video above published Jul 18, 2018: Citadel's (domain: citadel.com) Ken Griffin is not a fan of digital currencies nor bitcoin. "I don’t have a single portfolio manager [of mine] who has told me we should buy bitcoin, not a single portfolio manager," he said at the Delivering Alpha Conference in New York on Wednesday. "I have a hard time finding myself wanting to be in a position for being a liquidity provider for a product I don’t believe in." The investor said he wishes the younger generation would focus on more productive activities than invest in digital currencies.

Griffin founded Citadel in 1990, and has a net worth of $9 billion, according to Forbes. His hedge fund firm now manages more than $30 billion in assets. One out of every five US stocks trade through Citadel Securities (domain: citadelsecurities.com) on a daily basis, Griffin confirmed. The firm’s multistrategy fund, known as Wellington, was up 1.52 percent in June and 8.79 percent during the first half of the year. More info here.

4) ICYMI Tech News:

Google fined by the European Union (EU):

source: Statista.com

• Google: "We intend to appeal."--Android has created more choice, not less | blog.google.
• Amazon $AMZN owns 33% of the internet “cloud,” 49% of US e-commerce, and is elbowing into other sectors--WolfStreet.com. Amazon.com, Inc.'s stock market value hit $900 billion on Wednesday, threatening Apple's position in the race to be the first company with a market cap of One Trillion Dollars (US$). 
• SeekingAlpha.com: Gaming won't save Snap $SNAP.
• Mukesh Ambani overtook Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma to become Asia’s richest person as he positions Reliance Industries Ltd. to disrupt the e-commerce space in India--BloombergQuint.com.
• Postmates adds another 100+ cities in the US, bringing total to 385--TechCrunch.com.
• Amazon foes Walmart and Microsoft deepen tech partnership--the shared rivalry with Amazon ‘is absolutely core to this,’--Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, WSJ.com July 17, 2018.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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