Showing posts with label forecasts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label forecasts. Show all posts

2017-05-01

Apple vs Qualcomm Battle Escalates, Apple Withholds Royalties (video)

Apple Cuts Off Payments to Qualcomm

Apple Inc. (apple.com) cut off billions of dollars in payments to Qualcomm Inc., (qualcomm.com) turning a contract dispute into what one analyst called an "all-out war," forcing Qualcomm, a leading smartphone chip supplier, to slash forecasts given only days ago. Bloomberg.com's Ian King reports on "Bloomberg Technology" on Friday, April 28, 2017. Read more at  Apple Halts License Payments to Qualcomm in ‘All-Out War’ | Bloomberg.com.

See also: Qualcomm warns of profit hit as Apple battle intensifies | Reuters.com and iPhone 8 may miss one key feature already in the Galaxy S8 | CNET.com: "Apple's next flagship phone may be incapable of tapping into higher speeds [gigabit LTE] offered by wireless carriers. You can blame its relationships with Intel and Qualcomm."

Apple will report quarterly earnings on Tuesday, May 2, 2017.

graphic: Apple vs Qualcomm ©2017 DomainMondo.com
Below, Apple $AAPL and Qualcomm $QCOM shares last week (note resiliency of $QCOM on Friday:
AAPL
QCOM
Apple Continues to Improperly Interfere with Qualcomm’s Agreements with Contract Manufacturers | Qualcomm.com April 28, 2017: "Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) today announced that it has been informed by Apple Inc. that Apple is withholding payments to its contract manufacturers for the royalties those contract manufacturers owe under their licenses with Qualcomm for sales during the quarter ended March 31, 2017.  Apple has indicated it will continue this behavior until its dispute with Qualcomm is resolved ..."

Qualcomm's full press release (28 April 2017) embedded below:


See  also on Domain Mondo:

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2017-03-15

Fed Rate Hike, Brexit, Dutch & French Elections: The Path Forward (videos)

Fed's Rate Path in Focus Now That March Is Certain

Video above published Mar 14, 2017, by Bloomberg.com:  The Federal Open Market Committee began its two-day meeting on Tuesday with markets 100 percent convinced the Fed will raise interest rates. Now the question becomes, how the Fed's rate path may progress from here. Bloomberg's Matthew Boesler is joined by Greg Peters, senior portfolio manager at PGIM, on "Bloomberg Daybreak: Americas."

U.K.'s May Says Brexit Bill Becomes Law in 'Coming Days'

Video above published Mar 14, 2017, by Bloomberg.com: U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May announced in a statement before the House of Commons that she is on track to trigger Brexit by the end of the month and her Brexit bill will become law within the "coming days."

Dutch Election: Why It Matters

Video above published on Mar 13, 2017: After Brexit and Donald Trump, will the Netherlands be next to upset the status quo? The Dutch are heading to the polls on March 15, and the election is seen as an important test for the future of the European Union. WSJ.com's Niki Blasina reports.

See also: Netherlands Vote Wednesday: Analyzing the Turkey Effect; How Many Parties Will Take to Form A Coalition? | MishTalk: "Don’t Hold Your Breath"

 UPDATE 15 Mar 2017: exit polls show Rutte controlling 31 seats, 10 fewer than his party won in the 2012, while 3 parties each won 19: pro-EU center party D66, Christian Democrat CDA, and Wilders' Party for Freedom. Rutte has said he would not rule with Wilders, so the question becomes how he can acquire the necessary 75-seat coalition, which may take months of talks before a new government can be formed.

Meanwhile the latest news about the coming French election: French presidential candidate Francois Fillon charged with misuse of public funds (video) one day before his scheduled questioning in the matter, reports Bloomberg's Mark Barton on "Bloomberg Markets."

Why Robert Shiller Is Worried About the Trump Rally | Bloomberg.com: "Ethan Harris, Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s global economist in New York. Like the fable of the boy who cried wolf, Harris says pessimistic forecasters have so badly over-estimated the consequences of big events -- the rolling European debt crisis since 2010, the U.S. debt-ceiling standoff in 2011, Brexit in 2016 -- that traders have become conditioned to ignore them."

 "Shiller says when markets are as buoyant as they are now, resisting the urge to pile in is hard regardless of what else might be happening in society. “I was tempted to do it, too,” he says. “Trump keeps talking about a new spirit for America and so you could (A) believe that or (B) you could believe that other investors believe that.” On whether stocks are nearing a top, Shiller can’t say with any certainty. He’s loathe to make short-term forecasts."

 Caveat Emptor!

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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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2016-08-28

News Review: Fear Campaigns; Dot Registry Challenges ICANN Monopoly

Domain Mondo's review and look ahead [pdf], starting first with the macro view, the big picture, after cutting through all the noise, which is also this week's first feature:

Feature • Fear Campaigns: EU referendum vote for Brexit 'would spark year-long recession' | BBC.com May 24, 2016. Sound familiar? Citigroup: A Trump Victory in November Could Cause a Global Recession | Bloomberg.com August 25, 2016.

 Reality check: While no one knows who will win the U.S. Presidential election (as of August 27, the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times "Daybreak" tracking poll shows Clinton and Trump virtually tied 44.6%-43.3%), any "expert" opinion that a Trump victory, or a Clinton victory, will cause a "global recession" should be treated as conjecture, hyperbole, bias, or just plain old hysterics. Legendary investor Warren Buffett, who endorsed Hillary Clinton, doesn't think that: Warren Buffett on Trump Presidency: We'll Be Fine | Fortune.com: "Predicted the country, the economy and his company would continue to grow."  A Trump victory would most likely lead to a surge in economic prosperity according to billionaire bond investor Jeffrey Gundlach, who has not endorsed Trump nor said whether he would vote for him, but has predicted Trump will win:
Not only will Donald Trump win the November election, but his victory will propel U.S. economic growth higher. Trump will fuel a debt-driven increase in government spending, which will push GDP growth to levels reminiscent of the Ronald Reagan era. Trump will move ahead in the polls, despite criticism from the media, and as Trump’s inauguration approaches, the market will rally “for reasons people won’t understand." --Gundlach: Trump Will Be an Economic Success | AdvisorPerspectives.com
Even staunch Clinton supporter, and Nobel Prize-winning economist, Paul Krugman, agrees that Trump Is Right on Economics | Paul Krugman Op-Ed in The New York Times. And in fairness to the Citigroup "expert" source of the Bloomberg story first cited above, the headline is misleading. If you read the story all the way to the end, the source states that there could be a boost to the economy under either a Trump or Clinton administration.

None of this is meant to suggest voting for either Trump or Clinton (frankly, at this point I have grave reservations about both candidates), but I am pointing out that "fear" is a human emotion exploited by politicians, media, pundits, and hucksters (e.g., FUD, FOMO). Caveat Emptor!

And what about that Brexit Project Fear campaign waged, unsuccessfully, by the Remain camp? Well, besides Remain leaders David Cameron and George Osborne losing their jobs as Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, respectively, the UK economy has not collapsed into recession either. Pro-Remain establishment media, e.g., the Financial Times (FT.com), are now beginning to eat crow:


Brexit apocalypse? No. The FT.com's economics reporter Emily Cadman and Lex writer Giles Wilkes take the temperature of the post-Brexit referendum economy. Video published August 25, 2016. See also: Pro-Remain billionaire Sir Martin Sorrell changes his tune on Brexit and calls on Theresa May to get us out of the EU as soon as possible | TheSun.co.uk.

Chart: FTSE 100 UP 7.89% since Brexit Vote on June 23rd
FTSE 100 UP 7.89% since Brexit Vote on June 23rd
The London Stock Exchange benchmark indexes: FTSE 100 up +7.89% since Brexit vote (see chart above) and FTSE 250  up +3.45% since the Brexit vote on June 23rd. Meanwhile the German DAX is ahead only 3.22%, and the French CAC40 (-0.54%) is still in negative territory, since June 23rd.

No one can "know" what the long-term impact of Brexit will be, on either the UK or EU, until the details are "known" of a post-Brexit UK-EU trade agreement, as well as other UK non-EU trade initiatives. Projections based on assumptions are speculative at best.  All of this just reaffirms what I cited three weeks ago: "There are no experts on the future. Explaining the present and the past requires expertise: “it’s your carburetor/prostate”. In forecasting the future, experts are generally no better than everybody else. They might be worse."--rationaloptimist.com. See also Barry Ritholtz on the folly of forecasts (and see this, this and this), "... it is worth reminding ourselves just how terrible humans are at predicting ... what will happen in markets and/or the economy."
____________

Feature • Dot Registry Challenges ICANN Monopoly

On Friday, new gTLD applicant Dot Registry LLC, filed a motion in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (No. 16-55693, No. 16-55694) for leave to file an Amicus Curiae ("friend of the Court") brief in support of Plaintiff-Appellee DotConnectAfrica Trust (DCA Trust). The motion and tendered brief can be reviewed in full here and here (pdf) (highlighting added). Dot Registry is supporting DCA Trust's argument that ICANN's "release" from liability required of all new gTLD applicants is unenforceable under California Civil Code Sec. 1688 and is also unconscionable. In its tendered brief, Dot Registry refers to ICANN as a monopolist and repeatedly refers to ICANN's "monopoly" in the domain name space:
"ICANN exercises monopoly power over a critical channel of commerce. It may not lawfully use that power to exempt its decisions from any binding review by a court or arbitrator in any forum. California courts will not enforce contracts that are unconscionable. [citing authorities]"--p. 11
Dot Registry Amicus Curiae Brief  Table of  Contents
Other ICANN and Domain Name News:

•  ICANN and UDRP Trademark Abuse: Mystery over entertainment tycoon’s web of trademarks, domains and company names | Blog | WorldTrademarkReview.com: "manipulating trademarks to reverse hijack domain names through [ICANN's] UDRP"--i.e., how some lawyers and other "bad actors" grab domain names using ICANN processes. ICANN set up the UDRP [Uniform Dispute Resolution Process] in 1999 and provided no penalties for anyone filing meritless UDRP claims or otherwise attempting to take domain names through UDRP processes via trademark abuse. ICANN has known about this problem since at least 2001--see ICANN Hates Fairness and Predictability? So What's New?--but, in typical ICANN GNSO fashion has "put the cart before the horse" by delaying a review of the issue in its current GNSO working group:
"GNSO Working Group that will be conducting a Policy Development Process (PDP) to Review all Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) in all gTLDs. This PDP is being conducted in two phases, as described in the approved charter: Phase One will focus on a review of all the RPMs that were developed for the 2012 New gTLD Program, and Phase Two will focus on a review of the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP)." 

•  Another Government Land Grab in the [Domain] Name Space | InternetGovernance.org: "... ICANN has paved the way for [governments] ... to assert sovereignty and property rights over two letter domains at the second level domain of new gTLDs (2LSLDs) ..."

•  Sticky or Stuck? Has anyone successfully pointed a Weebly hosted Domain to Webflow? [Solved] Webflow Forums | webflow.com: "... Apparently if you purchased a domain name via Weebly, you can only change nameservers, and A/CNAME records are not available for modification. I suggest transferring the domain name to a proper domain name registrar."

•  Crowdfunding campaign for new gTLD .GAY applicant dotgay LLC via Generosity.com.

•  Comments close this coming week at ICANN on:

•  Tech News:
  1. EU vs Apple and Ireland: Brussels poised to strike down Apple ‘state aid’ | FT.com: "Brussels is poised to hand down an adverse ruling against Ireland after a three-year inquiry into claims the country granted an illegal tax arrangement to Apple, the world’s biggest tech company." See also US Treasury White Paper (pdf).
  2. Google's Russian antitrust case, global implications "... the Russian agency has issued a fine and given Google eight days to update its distribution deals and inform existing Android users about ways they can install competitive apps. Google has one more appeal left ... other governments, including the U.S., South Korea and in the EU, could be reevaluating their antitrust reviews of the Android operating system, the crux of Google’s global growth plan."--POLITICO.com
  3. Google petitions Supreme Court on Chrome and Patent Claims | Fortune.com: “Overbroad patent claims are a plague, especially in the vital and growing high-tech sector … All of this plays into the hands of entities that buy patents and then use litigation or the threat of litigation to extract settlements from alleged infringers,” says Google petition. See also Patentlyo.com.
  4. Peter Thiel is investing in startup Legalist (domain: legalist.us), that analyzes lawsuits to determine likelihood of victory and offers funding in exchange for half the judgment--TheGuardian.com. Caveat: see Champerty and maintenance | Wikipedia.org.
  5. Relaxing Privacy Vow, WhatsApp Will Share Some Data With Facebook--NYTimes.com.
  6. Alphabet's X division puts new leader on Project Loon: Tom Moore, co-founder of WildBlue Communications (acquired by ViaSat in 2009).--Bloomberg,com. See also Alphabet CEO ordered Google Fiber to downsize--ArsTechnica.com.
  7. The Metagame: A Monetization Opportunity For Twitter? "Twitter gets the metagame trend. Monetizing a metagame platform ..."--SeekingAlpha.com
  8. Evidence points to another Snowden at the NSA: "NSA may prove to be one of Washington’s greatest liabilities rather than assets."--Reuters.com
  9. In the Bitcoin Era, Ransomware Attacks Surge: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation said ransomware attacks cost victims $209 million in the first three months of the year, including costs, such as lost productivity and staff time to recover files, that is an average of about $333,000 an incident, based on complaints that it has received. The total is up from $24 million for all of 2015, or about $10,000 an infection, the FBI said."--WSJ.com
  10. Apple iPhone vs Web Services: "... Why buy a $700 iPhone when a $200 Android phone can access the same YouTube or Amazon Music as everyone else? All you need to do to get new Facebook features is refresh your browser or update your app. You don't need a high-performance device to participate in the 21st century ... And it could be a dire omen for high-margin hardware companies like Apple."--BusinessInsider.com
  11. Eleven Reasons To Be Excited About The Future of Technology--Chris Dixon, Medium.com.

• Four most popular posts (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this week on DomainMondo.com:
  1. News Review [21Aug]: IANA Stewardship Transition, Vint Cerf Retrospective (video):
  2. New gTLD AFRICA Appeal: DCA Trust Answering Brief vs ICANN & ZACR
  3. Strange Bedfellows: Vanke, Chinese Tycoon Wang Shi, and China (videos)
  4. Italy's Banks in Crisis, Final Nail in the Coffin for the EU and Euro? (videos)

• 4 Other Reading Recommendations:
  1. China's Best Bank Called 'Mirage' of Shadow Lending | Bloomberg.com: "Case of Bank of Tangshan highlights opaque financial risks across the nation."
  2. Here’s another reason not to trust TV news reports about election polls | WashingtonPost.com: "... Such judgments may lead news outlets to distort the true state of the race ..." See also: Bizarre Media Blackout Of Hacked George Soros Documents | investors.com
  3. "Markets Are Ripe For A Black Swan Event" - Why Most 'Well Hedged' Funds Won't Survive | Zero Hedge.com and "Seven Signs Of A Deeply Dysfunctional Market" - Why Citi Is Also Warning Of "Surprising, Sudden, Intense" Tail Risk | ZeroHedge.com.
  4. Retirement? Indie Publisher Fahrenheit Press on Running a Small Publishing House | DigitalBookWorld.com: "I was quite reluctant, but the truth is that retirement is boring. I decided that if I was going to do it at all I should do it properly but only if I could do it 100 percent on my own terms."

 -- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

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2016-07-25

Brexit a Month Later: Chicken Little Forecasts, Reality Check (videos)

Brits abroad | Brexit Breakdown:

Published on Jul 22, 2016: Now that the UK has a new government, Theresa May and her ministers have been looking further afield as the country prepares to negotiate its way out of the EU. James Blitz rounds up the week’s Brexit news.

 U.K. PM Theresa May: Britain Won’t Leave EU Before End of 2016:

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at a press conference following her first meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Published July 20, 2016
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.--Franklin D. Roosevelt, U.S. President, FDR's First Inaugural Address (1933)
"... the arguments for big short-run damage from Brexit look quite weak ... Indeed, the rebound in British stocks, which are now above pre-Brexit levels, is already causing some backlash against conventional economists and their Chicken Little warnings. Sorry, people, sloppy thinking is always a vice, no matter what cause it’s used for." -- Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist, June 30, 2016, NYTimes.com

Markets in Europe since the June 23rd Brexit vote: UK's FTSE100 UP +6.19%; Germany's DAX DOWN -1.07%, France's CAC40 DOWN -1.90%, Friday, July 22:
Top to Bottom: FTSE100, DAX, CAC40 (source: google.com)
CNN.com: [UK Prime Minister] May reiterated her commitment to Britain leaving the EU, following the vote to do so in a referendum last month. But although the country is leaving the EU, she said, "The United Kingdom is not leaving Europe. "I'm very clear, Brexit does mean Brexit," she said. "We will make a success of it. What we need to do in negotiating the deal is ensure that we listen to what people have said about the need for controls on free movement. But we also negotiate the right deal, and the best deal for the trade of goods and services for the British people." She also stressed that Britain should not be limited by focusing exclusively on its relationship with its European neighbors but should instead look to build beneficial ties throughout the world.

UK explores multi-billion pound free trade deal with China | BBC.com: "[UK] officials are looking at New Zealand's free trade agreement with China which took four years to negotiate and came into effect in 2008. Care would have to be taken over security concerns and the possibility of China "dumping" cheap imports in the UK - for example steel.... At the G20 many countries are now moving into practical mode ... [Brexit vote is] now a matter for the history books. The British public have spoken. The present challenge is seeing how the fifth largest economy in the world can take advantage of that decision, rebuilding a "close" trading relationship with the EU and new economic relationships with countries, like China, which, it should be remembered, has never had a free trade agreement with any EU country."

 See also: News Review [24Jul] | DomainMondo.com:  As noted before on Domain Mondo, the EU actually needs the UK more than the UK needs the EU (which is why the UK, instead of EU-dependent Greece, will be the first member state to leave the EU)... UK Property Market Proves Resilient post-Brexit and One month after Brexit: ... "little Brexit effect on [UK] retail sales growth" and ecommerce transactions "showing similar growth rates to those before the referendum."

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2015-12-31

That Frank Schilling Prediction about dot COM Was WRONG, Surprised?

Frank Schilling has been wrong about a lot of things, as have ICANN and everyone else involved with promoting and trying to sell ICANN's new gTLDs (new generic top-level domains). Frank made a bad decision early (before the new gTLDs even launched) to abandon his core constituency and join other new gTLD hucksters--registry operators--as well as some current or former ICANN Directors, Officers and staff, and other fellow travellers, in utilizing a new gTLD marketing strategy of going negative against the legacy gTLDs, particularly the market dominant .COM.

 It didn't work.

This year, Frank acknowledged, for the first time publicly, that some new gTLDs "just don't work" and some new gTLDs may "go dark." We all make mistakes--we're only human--but it's important to recognize our mistakes to avoid repeating them. As far as predictions go, whether Frank's or someone else's, remember what that great American philosopher Yogi Berra once said--

“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future."

"We should not expect people to be infallible; indeed, each year, I publish my own mea culpa column. But I prefer errors to be of the honest kind and not a nonsensical form of self-promotion. As we have noted previously, forecasts and predictions are simply an aggressive, destructive form of marketing. Like so much else in the world, the overwhelming majority of investment-related online opinion is junk. Intelligent investors understand that. They know that other people have agendas, biases and cognitive issues that make their perspective less valuable or relevant. Those who must learn this the hard way will find that education to be very expensive indeed."--Barry Ritholtz, Sorting Through Online Investment Noise | The Big Picture


Frank Schilling (Feb 15, 2014): 2015: dot COM flatlines -- Flat, as in no growth?

Frank Schilling: "yup no effective growth after deletions." (source)

Reality check:
As of Dec. 31, 2014, the base of registered domain names in .COM: 115.6 million
As of Dec. 31, 2015, the base of registered domain names in .COM: 124.0 million


Dot COM didn't "flatline" in 2015 but actually increased  registrations by 8.4 million domain names, which is more than the increase in domain name registrations during 2015 for ALL the new gTLDs combined (7.5 million; source: ntldstats.com), including all the "fake" new gTLD registrations by affiliates of new gTLD registry operators merely for warehousing and resale.

For an honest assessment of ICANN's new gTLDs from a "business" and "domainer" perspective, look no further than Rick Schwartz's recent post--his assessment--"I have never seen so many negative variables in any business in my life."

Caveat Emptor!

 See also on Domain Mondo:


 Happy New Year!




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