Showing posts with label consensus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label consensus. Show all posts

2018-10-15

BlackRock’s Rick Rieder: Technology Stocks Are Not Overvalued (video)

Technology stocks aren’t overvalued: BlackRock’s Rick Rieder

Rick Rieder, BlackRock.com’s CIO of global fixed income, discusses his outlook on technology stocks and why he owns Tesla $TSLA. FoxBusiness.com video published Oct 12, 2018.

$TSLA
"The BlackRock GPS signals that G7 growth remains solid and above-trend. The gap between the GPS and consensus expectations has widened slightly over the past month, suggesting that scope for upside growth surprises remains in coming quarters, particularly in the US"--Blackrock.com.


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2017-06-11

News Review: $4 Trillion Worth of New Internet Companies by 2025

News Review | ©2016 DomainMondo.com
Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2017-06-11):

 Features •  1) $4 Trillion Worth of New Internet Companies by 2025, 2) ICANN news: Holding ICANN Accountable, 3) Names, Domains & Trademarks: Hijacking a Top-Level Domain (TLD), 4) ICYMI Internet Domain News, 5) Investing: $AMZN, $AAPL, $FB, $GOOGL, $GOOG, $MSFT, 6) Most Popular.

1)  $4 Trillion Worth of New Internet Companies by 2025, Driven by a Global Increase in Online Consumer Spending:
source: invespcro.com
  • Credit Suisse report--up to 25% of U.S. malls will close within 5 years--"Ecommerce is the main culprit. The report estimates that as malls close, online sales [in the U.S.] will grow from 17 percent of retail sales today to 35 percent by 2030."--bizjournals.com.
Global Online Retail Spending - Statistics and Trends [Infographic] | invespcro.com (excerpt):

2) ICANN news:
Accountability & Transparency:
The more power you hold, the more accountable you need to be ... Accountability and transparency means you are able to reassess your conclusions ..."--HackerNoon.com.

One Reason Why ICANN Consensus Policy-making Is Failing the Global Internet Community: There’s no good way to kill a bad idea | Quartz | qz.com: "Blackford blames the momentum behind bad ideas on cascade effects. Yes, individuals are prone to making poor decisions for emotional or biased reasons (known as “cognitive heuristics”) and this irrationality is part of the problem. But there’s also a broader sociological issue, in that others’ opinions carry a huge amount of weight in influencing our views. A cultural consensus—even without proper evidence—can form pretty quickly."

 a. Holding ICANN Accountable
Still no substantive response from the ICANN CFO to my email of May 28, 2017, re: compensation of Steve Crocker, ICANN Board Chairman, paid by ICANN to Crocker's personal corporation Shinkuro, Inc., and not reported on the ICANN FY16 IRS Form 990 (see last week's post Holding ICANN Accountable, A Personal Sojourn Into ICANN Dysfunction for more).

 With the help of the ICANN Ombudsman and Complaints @ICANN.org, ICANN finally provided an "answer" to one of the questions I submitted on April 26, 2017, to the ICANN President & CEO, ICANN Chairman (& Board), and ICANN GDD President, in connection with the ICANN Quarterly Stakeholder Call on April 27, 2017, see last week's Holding ICANN Accountable, A Personal Sojourn Into ICANN Dysfunction. The ICANN "answer" to that one question which ICANN had been evading since April 27, 2017, is a Letter from Cyrus Namazi to John Poole (editor of Domain Mondo), published by ICANN 08 June 2017, in response to my email of June 2, 2017. Bottom line: ICANN never responded to the December 2008 correspondence from NTIA and the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division which stated:
“ICANN is obligated to manage gTLDs in the interests of registrants and to protect the public interest in competition. ICANN appears to have assumed that the introduction of new gTLDs necessarily will enhance competition and promote choice and innovation, without offering any evidence to support that assumption .... The Division makes two specific recommendations. First, ICANN’s general approach to new gTLDs should be revised to give greater consideration to consumer [registrant] interests. ICANN should more carefully weigh potential consumer harms against potential consumer benefits before adding new gTLDs and renewing new gTLD registry agreements. Second, the RFP process and proposed registry agreement should include provisions that would enable ICANN to constrain new registry operators from exercising market power. In particular, ICANN should establish competitive mechanisms for authorizing new gTLDs and renewals of gTLD registry agreements whereby prospective gTLD operators would compete for gTLDs by proposing registry terms – including maximum fee schedules – that would provide consumer [registrant] benefits.”

b.  ICANN public comment periods closing in June, 2017 (subject to change):

c. ICANN ICYMI news:

d. FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly Blasts IANA Transition:   Foreign governments want control over the internet | UnionLeader.com May 24, 2017: "... so-called experts who argued that even a minimalist U.S. government role, designed to preserve internet freedom, was upsetting to foreign nations, and therefore no longer sustainable in the global community. Instead, they said that if the U.S. terminated involvement in ICANN and ceded our sound principles a bit, authoritarian governments would back off their continued push for more internet government regulation and control. These views eventually won the day, leading to the U.S. government terminating its ICANN relationship in October 2016. At the time, those who challenged the ICANN deal — of which I was one — were in favor of a true multi-stakeholder approach, not the questionable one being adopted. We argued that there were insufficient mechanisms to prevent authoritarian governments from filling the void in ICANN when the U.S. relinquished its former role. Equally important, every indication cried out that the transition was being rushed, and highly unlikely to dissuade the efforts of other governments seeking more control over the internet in other settings. Since a reconstituted ICANN was approved, it only seems appropriate to assess whether the appeasement strategy worked. Not shockingly, it doesn’t seem to have done so. Foreign governments have, in fact, renewed their disturbing calls for government control of the internet via a number of forums, such as the United Nations. Consider just three recent instances .... In the short time since ICANN was transitioned to its new structure, there have been multiple plans and proposals by governments to directly involve UN entities in internet governance. It is fair to say that we got the short end of the stick, as our fancy strategy didn’t appease anyone." (emphasis added)

e.  GDD Summit Notes and Action Items | Madrid | ICANN.org:  notes-action-items-gdd-summit-madrid-30may17-en.pdf [826 KB] embedded below (highlighting added):


3) Names, Domains & Trademarks

4) ICYMI Internet Domain News 

 5) Investing: 
Friday's sell-off in tech stocks appears to have been sparked by a report from Goldman Sachs chief investment officer Robert Bouroujerdi warning of growing risks on five leading tech stocks :
"Five companies poised to dominate disruption – Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet [Google] – have added a total of $600 billion of market cap this year or the equivalent GDP of Hong Kong and South Africa combined."
Meanwhile the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) closed Friday at a new record high:
DJIA

"To buy when others are despondently selling and to sell when others are euphorically buying takes the greatest courage, but provides the greatest profit."--Sir John Templeton

“If you aren’t willing to own a stock for 10 years, don’t even think about owning it for ten minutes ... You need to divorce your mind from the crowd. The herd mentality causes all these IQ's to become paralyzed. I don't think investors are now acting more intelligently, despite the intelligence. Smart doesn't always equal rational. To be a successful investor you must divorce yourself from the fears and greed of the people around you, although it is almost impossible.”--Warren Buffett

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

 -- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo

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2017-01-16

MacroView | Team Trump Shuns Davos | U.S. Dollar Set To Soar?

MacroView | ©2016 DomainMondo.com
Domain Mondo's weekly review of  macro economic and investing news:

MacroView Feature • Davos a/k/a  World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting, will be held 17-20 January 2017, at Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, with Chinese President Xi Jinping speaking at the opening plenary and leading "an 80-strong delegation" of Chinese business executives and billionaires to the annual gathering of global elitists. Although WEF founder Klaus Schwab met with members of Trump’s staff in December, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks told Bloomberg.com that “No one will be attending.”  Another senior member of Trump’s transition told Bloomberg that the gathering of billionaires and political leaders represents "the power structure that fueled the populist anger that helped Trump win the presidential election." See Davos Wonders If It’s Part of the Problem | Bloomberg.com:
"Kenneth Rogoff can pinpoint the moment he started to grow concerned Donald Trump would be the next U.S. president: It was when Rogoff’s fellow attendees at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting last January said it could never happen. “A joke I’ve told 1,000 people in the months since leaving Davos is that the conventional wisdom of Davos is always wrong,” says the Harvard professor and former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. “No matter how improbable, the event most likely to happen is the opposite of whatever the Davos consensus is.” The repeated failure of business and political elites to predict what’s coming—last year, that included the U.K.’s vote to leave the European Union—doesn’t strike those returning this month to the Swiss Alps as very funny. After a year in which political upsets roiled financial markets and killed off the careers of once-dominant Davos-going politicians, the concern for delegates attending this year’s meeting isn’t that their forecasts are often wrong, but that their worldview is." (emphasis added)
See also:

MacroView Feature • The U.S. Dollar Set To Soar?:
"[U.S.] dollars (USD) have a variety of utility value. They can used to buy other goods and services globally, serve as collateral for loans, earn interest with low transaction costs when converted into U.S. Treasury bonds, and so on. In certain ways, USD offer more utility value than gold or any tangible form of collateral/capital. If we refuse to recognize the high utility value of USD and its global ease of flow, then we will continue to misunderstand the demand for the dollar and its appreciation."--Charles Hugh Smith

Goldman Sachs alum and investor Raoul Pal: “Looking at the shortfall of dollars and what is happening in the world right now, I think it could probably rally something like 75% from its low, so that’s still a long way from here. My personal target for the last six years has been the euro goes to 75 cents against the dollar and the yen at 200.”-- Here’s why the U.S. dollar could soar by another 30% | MarketWatch.com. See also Bitcoin Collapses, Chinese Latecomers Get Fleeced | WolfStreet.com: "The People’s Bank of China announced on Wednesday that it is probing the major bitcoin exchanges in Beijing and Shanghai – BTCC, Huobi, and OKCoin – for a list of violations, including market manipulation, money laundering, and unauthorized financing. This is part of the PBOC’s efforts to crack down on capital flight ... The yuan lost 6.5% against the dollar last year, its worst year since 1994 ..."

 Other Macro Economic and Investing News:

•  Billionaire investors and the Trump Rally: Carl Icahn, now appointed Trump's special adviser on regulation, says he left Trump's electoral victory party in the early hours of the morning of November 9th, to bet about $1 billion on U.S. equities. Icahn told a TV interviewer in early November that while the U.S. economy still faced a number of problems, Trump's victory represented "a major step in the right direction." WSJ.com reports billionaire investor (and Clinton supporter) George Soros lost nearly $1 billion in the weeks after the Trump election (Soros thought the stock market would decline), while Soros's ex-deputy, Stanley Druckenmiller, profited by betting on the post-election Trump rally in the stock market.

•  Jim Chanos warns markets could be on verge of historic shift: For famed short-seller Jim Chanos, the big question for investors is to decide is "whether Trump's victory represents a major once-in-fifty-year sea-change in thinking about capitalism. If it is then you have to pay attention," he says. Chanos added, "if we look at the events of 2016 – Brexit, the Italian referendum, Trump, and the rise of nationalist China – are these the harbingers of something bigger? Or are they just a coincidence? The ground seems to be fertile for things to change globally." If so, this would have huge implications for investors: "If we're in one of those periods now – if 2016 is like 1932 or 1979 – then you not only have to change your portfolio, you have to change your lifestyle ... If this is a major shift to populism, nationalism, greater state involvement, and less globalism, then you really have to rethink almost everything in your life."

•  Clinton Foundation shutting down the Clinton Global Initiative: Legal Notice filed with State of New York gives a "layoff date" of April 15, 2017, for the 22 affected employees. Whether the Clinton Foundation will also close is unknown. ZeroHedge.com reported donations to the foundation have collapsed "as the political cout of the 'charitable' organization dried up and as the opportunity for any future 'quid pro quo' is now effectively gone," while also noting that a FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation regarding allegations of corruption is still ongoing.

•  Trump's Cabinet nominees appear to be on track for confirmation. The most impressive person among the stellar group thus far? Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson who testified for nine hours without notes and showed an impressive knowledge of global issues, watch video of the hearing here. See also: LIVE Video: Secretary of Defense & CIA Director Confirmation Hearings. Coming up this week is the Wilbur Ross hearing, nominee for Secretary of Commerce, at 10:00 a.m., Wednesday, before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

•  Inauguration of Donald J. Trump as the 45th President of the United States is set for Friday, January 20, 2017, see 58pic2017.org for more information.
U.S. Marines in the 2013 inauguration parade
One More Thing: 

 Have You Heard the Latest Fake News from the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Sunday Times, The Guardian, BuzzFeed et al?

 Trump Aides Deny Sunday Times Report of Putin Iceland Summit | Bloomberg.com: "That is 100 percent false,” a Trump aide said late Sunday.
“If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed.”--Mark Twain
Why Did BuzzFeed Publish the Trump Dossier? | The Atlantic.com: "In distributing a set of inflammatory allegations that it admitted it could not vouch for, BuzzFeed sidestepped [violated] a basic principle of journalism ... The reporter’s job is not to simply dump as much information as possible into the public domain, though that can at times be useful too, as some of WikiLeaks’ revelations have shown. It is to gather information, sift through it, and determine what is true and what is not. The point of a professional journalist corps is to have people whose job it is to do that work on behalf of society, and who can cultivate sources and expertise to help them adjudicate it. A pluralistic press corps is necessary to avoid monolithic thinking among reporters, but transparent transmission of misinformation is no more helpful or clarifying than no information at all."--David A. Graham, a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers U.S. politics and global news.

Read the tweet below carefully. This is journalism?

 -- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

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2017-01-15

News Review: ICANN Accountability WS2 & Consensus 'ICANN Style'

News Review | ©2016 DomainMondo.com
Domain Mondo's weekly review of internet domain news:

First Feature •  ICANN accountability workstream 2 (WS2) Dashboard--The ICANN Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG-Accountability) Work Stream 2 (WS2) is "focused on addressing accountability topics for which a timeline for developing solutions and full implementation may extend beyond the IANA Stewardship Transition."--here's the latest WS2 subgroups progress update from ICANN:

CCWG-Accountability Workstream 2 Dashboard (pdf) (Dec 2016, updated 11 Jan 2017) embed:



Second Feature •  Consensus 'ICANN Style'
Decision-Making Methodologies:In developing its Proposal(s), work plan and any other reports, the CCWG-Accountability shall seek to act by consensus. Consensus calls should always make best efforts to involve all members (the CCWG-Accountability or sub-working group). The Chair(s) shall be responsible for designating each position as having one of the following designations:
a) Full Consensus - a position where no minority disagrees; identified by an absence of objection; b) Consensus – a position where a small minority disagrees, but most agree. In the absence of Full Consensus, the Chair(s) should allow for the submission of minority viewpoint(s) and these, along with the consensus view, shall be included in the report.
In a rare case, the chair(s) may decide that the use of a poll is reasonable to assess the level of support for a recommendation. However, care should be taken in using polls that they do not become votes, as there are often disagreements about the meanings of the poll questions or of the poll results.
Any member who disagrees with the consensus-level designation made by the Chair(s), or believes that his/her contributions are being systematically ignored or discounted should first discuss the circumstances with the relevant sub-group chair or the CCWG-Accountability co-chairs. In the event that the matter cannot be resolved satisfactorily, the group member should request an opportunity to discuss the situation with the Chairs of the chartering organizations or their designated representatives.
How does this play out in reality? Here's a snapshot: Jurisdiction Meeting #16 (10 January @ 13:00 UTC) chat transcript--"threaten me that we have consensus or nothing, and I will join the objectors"--

Note that the Jurisdiction subgroup is "behind schedule, but recovery is still possible" according to the subgroup progress update graphic at the top of this post.

Other Internet Domain News:

 •  Neustar acquisition: Friday (Jan. 13) was the preliminary proxy and FCC filing deadline for the Golden Gate acquisition of Neustar (neustar.biz | NYSE:NSR), a domain registry services and technology company. The go-shop also expired Friday (no alternative bids anticipated according to SeekingAlpha.com).

•  Rebrand--New Domain Name--Yahoo! Inc. will be changing its name to Altaba Inc., a portmanteau of "alternative" and "Alibaba" and has registered the domain name altaba.com:
The name change is required because Yahoo's operating businesses are being sold to Verizon which will retain the Yahoo! brand. See also: Marissa Mayer to Leave Yahoo Board  | WSJ.com.

 •  Domain Register Pty Ltd accused of conning millions of dollars from unsuspecting businesses ... | HeraldSun.com

•  Nigeria’s .NG suffers patronage, as firms, others adopt foreign domain names | guardian.ng

•  Where is the most affordable internet in Africa? | Quartz | qz.com: If you want affordable internet in Africa, move to a country on the coast.

•  Obama Opens NSA’s Vast Trove of Warrantless Data to Entire Intelligence Community, Just in Time for Trump | TheIntercept.com

•  The 13th Annual State of the Net Conference | StateoftheNet.org will be held on January 23rd at the Newseum’s Knight Conference Center, Washington, D.C. More info here. On Twitter: @SOTN #sotn

• Real Innovation and Domain Names--Startups overwhelmingly choose .COM domains--Which Extension Was Most Popular With Startups in 2016? | NamePros.com.

•  ICANN FY17 Q2 Stakeholder Call, 15 February 2017 at 15:00 UTC. "The call will focus on how ICANN has implemented community policy for the quarter ending 31 December 2016. The call will also provide an Africa and Middle East update, as part of a new format aimed at spotlighting regional activities." Click here to register for the call and to receive joining instructions. If you are unable to access the form, email ICANN [ icann.communications @ icann.org ] to register with your full name and an email address.

•  ICANN Policy staff will be holding its annual Policy Workshop in Los Angeles from Monday 23 January 2017 to Friday 27 January 2017. Staff will be replying to email requests, but there will be delays.--GNSO SO/AC Support

•  Most popular posts (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this past week on DomainMondo.com:
  1. US Intel Community's 'Nazi-like' Tactics, Media Hysteria & Trump (video)
  2. News Review: New gTLD .AFRICA Plaintiff Files for New TRO vs ICANN
  3. TechReview | 2017 Will Be The Year Of Amazon $AMZN (video)
  4. LIVE Video Stream: Donald Trump's First Press Conference Since Election
  5. MacroView: UK Economy Defies Economists' Dire Brexit Predictions (video)
  6. Alibaba's Jack Ma Meets With Trump, Discuss 1 Million New US Jobs

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

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2015-09-22

Only 19 of 90 Comments Support ICANN Accountability Proposal Overall

Contrary to recent representations and "spin"(pdf) from the ICANN CCWG-Accountability co-Chairs, the second public comment period resulted in less than a majority, and much less than a consensus of community support and endorsement overall, for the most recent CCWG proposal, with most comments raising questions and concerns--see excerpts below from the full pdf slide presentation which can be found as an attachment on the CCWG mail list here: http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-September/005493.html--


All comments may be read here: http://forum.icann.org/lists/comments-ccwg-accountability-03aug15/. The CCWG-Accountability group is scheduled to meet with the ICANN Board of Directors this coming Friday and Saturday, September 25-26, in Los Angeles.

The CCWG-Accountability process dealing with enhancing ICANN accountability is one part of the NTIA requirements for the IANA Stewardship Transition, the other part being the ICG process now also underway.

See also on Domain Mondo:




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